The Shadow of War
by Darth Gilthoron
Summary: Autumn 1870: While the German army lays siege to Paris, civil war tears the city apart. And at the same time, the world as the Phantom has known it is crumbling to pieces...
1. THE SHADOW OF WAR

**THE SHADOW OF WAR**

by  
Darth Gilthoron

Book One: Walking the Earth  
Book Two: Parting the Fog  
Book Three: Feeling the Night  
Book Four: Kindling the Flames  
Book Five: Breaking the Waves  
Book Six: Watching the Sky  
Book Seven: Tearing the Clouds  
Book Eight: Wielding the Storm  
Book Nine: Turning the World  
Book Ten: Lighting the Stars

Author's Note: _This is the sequel to _The King of the Catacombs_, but it can also be read on its own, as all necessary information will be included and everything will be explained here._

_When I posted _The King of the Catacombs _in February, I was practically a complete stranger to the phandom. Since then, things have changed a lot. I have read Gaston Leroux's original novel, and I have watched the DVD almost until happy brain-death, and then celebrated happy brain-death on jolly PPN (potophans dot net, for all those among you who are interested), among a bunch of crazy girls, Christine's lovely cleavage, and, for reasons of style, a banana milk. Those who have frequented this site or, despite its merry madness, still do, may know me as Fallen Angel Boy – or FAB, or little pervy boy, or, in some cases, leetle pervy boy, or the bar violinist, or somebody's sexy fiend (don't ask). I've also been urged to become a Tartan, which I associated with a kilt at that time (no, they said, it was Tarts and Tartans, but I didn't quite get it). I joined nonetheless, but still don't really know what it is – I suspect that they had brainwashed me to join the Gerard Butler fanclub or something. Anyway, I am now known as What's-A-Bloody-Tartan Tartan. lol Moreover, my rendition of the Phantom, known as Fallen Angel Erik (sometimes spelled as FallenAngel!Erik, don't ask me why), is now rather popular among certain of those ladies, and he is much quarrelled over – see _The Phantom Holiday Special_ for full detail. ;)_

_But enough about me, you'll believe me by now that I've got a right to be here. )_

_One more thing before we head off to discuss the historical setting: **New author policy: ALL REVIEWS WILL BE ANSWERED AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH NEW CHAPTER. So do leave one after you've read the newest instalment.** It seems that this is encouraging to reviewers. ;-)_

**_Historical Background – a (more or less) necessary introduction_**

_Unlike in _The King of the Catacombs_, the historical background setting will be of immense importance in this story. However, please do note that my rendition of the French-German war is not entirely historical. I have taken the liberty of changing the course of history somewhat for reasons lying in the narrative (and I'm sure you will understand once I explain). You will find a brief summary of events as they really occurred in the following paragraphs, and then what I changed about it (but if you're not interested in history, you may skip right down and continue with the cast g)._

_First, please note that the date given at the beginning of the movie is, in fact, wrong. It is supposed to be 1869; only with the Masquerade sequence we pass into 1870. Otherwise, if the masked ball took place in January 1871, it would have been towards the end of the siege of Paris (the capitulation was on January 19th, by the way, so you can imagine what life must have been like at that moment)… well, let us just say that it would not have taken place at all. So, the timeline we get is the following: The movie begins in the autumn of 1869 and continues until February 1870, where _The King of the Catacombs_ takes up the narrative, ending in early May 1870. Between its end and the beginning of this story, some time has elapsed; you will find yourselves in September 1870 – on the morning of September 19th, in fact, which is a very important date…_

_The French government saw a threat in the growing power of Prussia, especially since Prussia defeated the Austrian Empire in 1866, thereby gaining dominance over the Northern German Union. Emperor Napoleon III was losing popularity rapidly, and he knew that the fall of his Second Empire was only a question of time. Prussia, on the other hand, under the reign of King Wilhelm I and his counsellor, Prince Bismarck, planned to unite the Northern and Southern German states to one country, and Bismarck knew that France would meet any such attempts with resistance because Napoleon III would not suffer Prussia's power to grow any further at the borders of France. Both nations' involvement in a political intrigue in Spain struck the spark that would make the conflict escalate: On July 15th 1870, France declared war upon Prussia and the Northern German Union. The kings of Bavaria and Württemberg, the largest states among those of Southern Germany, sided with Prussia, while Austria was forced to remain neutral by Russian troops marching against the borders of its eastern provinces. England remained neutral as well._

_Under General Count Moltke, the German armies lay siege to Metz, then drove the French counterattack off into the North, where they forced them to capitulate at Sedan; together with over 100000 men, Emperor Napoleon III was made a prisoner of war. Three days later, on September 4th 1870, the Republic was proclaimed at Paris, though the power of the new government did not extend very far into the country anymore. On September 19th, the siege of Paris began. From Tours, Republican Léon Gambetta organized new armies, yet the commander of Metz, Marshal Bazaine, a monarchist, surrendered without necessity in October, which at once freed German contingents that had been bound in the west earlier on, and the Republican armies were defeated in the valleys of the rivers Loire and Saône. Weakened by starvation, Paris capitulated on January 19th 1871._

_In the meantime, Bismarck managed to convince the Southern German states to join the Union in November, and in December the Union was renamed German Realm. On January 18th 1871 already, Wilhelm I was proclaimed Emperor of Germany at Versailles. The treaties with France were signed on February 26th 1871 at Versailles and on May 10th 1871 at Frankfurt. Alsace and Lorraine, for centuries already object of conflicts between France and Germany, became part of Germany._

_While the rest of France was glad to have peace again, the population of Paris was discontent. On March 18th 1871, open revolt began. While the government fled the city, the Council of the Commune was elected and a reign of terror established. On May 21st, the march to free Paris began, led by the rightful government and with armies consisting mainly of prisoners of war Bismarck had readily released. The civil war for dominance of the city lasted until May 28th, then Paris was in the government's hands once more, and the government knew no mercy. Those among the Communards who did not flee in time were exiled or, in most cases, executed; thousands met that fate._

_(Yes, I'm using this term here, despite the translation of Leroux's novel using "Communists", because "Communards" is the more accurate term. While the Commune was strongly influenced by the anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon, who had demanded the abolition of all power of the state and called property theft, and while people at that time saw in it an outbreak of the very worst anarchistic and anti-societal tendencies, it had in fact, compared to later Communist reigns in the spirit of Marx and Engels, a rather democratic and egalitarian character.)_

_For this story, I have taken the liberty of moving the Communard uprising into the place of the Republic's proclamation, so that now the Commune begins on September 4th 1870, and that the siege is accompanied by civil war and reign of terror inside the city, thus increasing the loyalty conflict among the city's nobility._

_The Head of the Council in this narrative, Michel Delannay, and his closest companion, Charles LaCroix, are both fictional characters, as is the Prussian General Walther von Nordstedt. Who really lived, though, is Hermann Lando. Some years prior to this tale, he married a woman who already had a daughter, whose true father remains unknown to us. This daughter had a daughter herself, who again had a daughter, who had a daughter in turn – who is my mother._

**Full Cast:  
**The Phantom……Gerard Butler  
Christine Daaé……Emmy Rossum  
Raoul de Chagny……Patrick Wilson  
Meg Giry……Jennifer Ellison  
Valencienne……Kate Beckinsale  
Claire Giry……Miranda Richardson  
Aeternus……Gary Oldman  
Gérard de Chateaupers……Arnold Vosloo  
Michel Delannay……Bruce Willis  
Charles LaCroix……Alan Rickman  
Maurice de Bracy……Hugh Jackman  
Hermann Lando……Billy Boyd  
Walther von Nordstedt……Liam Neeson  
Gaston……Christian Bale  
Serge……Rufus Sewell  
Roger de Castelot-Barbezac……Heath Ledger  
Lászlo……Richard Roxburgh  
Sándor……Hayden Christensen  
Gilles André……Simon Callow  
Richard Firmin……Cíaran Hinds  
Carlotta Giudicelli……Minnie Driver  
Xavier……Orlando Bloom  
Marie……Winona Ryder  
Jean Leclair……Jason Flemyng  
Cécile Jammes……Reese Witherspoon  
Geneviève Poussepain……Natalie Portman  
Victorine Poussepain……Keira Knightley  
Ferdinand Burgdorf……Viggo Mortensen  
Heinrich Karlsberg……Rupert Everett  
Pierre Leblanc……James Marsden  
Patrice Roux……Shane West  
Tricur……Oded Fehr  
The Herald of Fate……Hugo Weaving  
The Lady of Dreams……Patricia Velazquez  
The Hunter……Levani Outchaneichvili  
The Dragon-tamer……Sean Bean  
Reyer……Murray Melvin  
Vincent de Chagny……John Cleese  
Fabienne de Chagny ……Judi Dench  
Robert Millet……Bill Murray  
Marguerite Renard……Anna Massey  
Lucie……Christina Ricci  
The Cook……Miriam Margolyes  
Jeanette……Frances O'Connor  
Julie……Shannyn Sossamon  
Fleur-de-Lys……Jennifer Love Hewitt  
Nehring……Kevin J. O'Connor  
Suzette……Monica Bellucci  
Lilie……Rebecca Romijn-Stamos  
Leyla……Katie Holmes  
Landlady……Maggie Smith  
Febis……Christopher Lee  
Willy……Anna Paquin

_To all those who have in the past voiced interest as far as ownership of one of my original characters is concerned (or are yet going to): Please note that my sister claims several of them her own, and they cannot be had either for love or for money. These are as follows: Maurice de Bracy (because he is just cool), Roger de Castelot-Barbezac (whose last name actually belongs to Gaston Leroux, but never mind), Sándor, Xavier, Walther von Nordstedt (more for coolness than for looks), Ferdinand Burgdorf, Heinrich Karlsberg, Pierre Leblanc, Patrice Roux, Tricur and Febis (he is definitely too old for her… but he has so much style… which leads her to the opinion that she wants him as her granddad). She also insists on her ownership of Raoul and the Phantom (though she doesn't approve of the latter's actions, but she thinks that he can still be happily gawked at and cooed over, and she'll be happy to show you her certificate of ownership any time). gg_

_And to the gentlemen out there (there might be some, who knows? I won't give up the hope that I'm not alone!): Valencienne is mine! Yes, MINE! And I also won't give away Christine. And about the Lady of Dreams (also known as Niobe in _The King of the Catacombs_)… let's just say I see things much the same as my sister does about the Phantom… ;-p_

**Censor: PG-13.** Parents strongly cautioned: This story contains both violence and sexual content and may therefore not be suitable for younger readers.


	2. BOOK ONE: Walking the Earth

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:_

_The Musician of the Night: Not exactly. Lando (to be pronounced French, please, not like Lando Calrissian!) was merely married to my great-great-great-grandmother, but he's not the father of my great-great-grandmother – luckily. Wouldn't want that in the family._

_Hotaru__: Ah, ice cream. I see. _Raaahh_ for the ice cream.__ ;-) My Erik wants some, too. g_

_Ashley: Fancy meeting you here! ;-) Only keep in mind that I'm not precisely accurate, despite being a historian's son. ;) But some things just look better when they're a bit changed. g_

_TheQueenSarah__: Feel free to hate me, because it does not bother me much. I'm not one of those who tries to be everybody's friend. And if I appreciate Niobe, that's my own concern, since she's my own creation. Pairings are my own concern just as well. _Your _Phantom? There must have been a slight misunderstanding… And I don't feel obliged to lay open all the future pairings; there have been enough spoilers already. Yes, this is going to be my sister's Christmas present. If you don't like it, don't read it, but don't go telling me all the time that I'm practically destroying the world by Erik and Christine _not_ cooing over each other like a pair of pigeons all the time._

_Bea: So what the Hell is what I said. g Wow, you're the first person who even knows who Levani Outchaneichvili is! Let me guess… you know him from _Air Force One

**Book One: Walking the Earth**

**I. Watch it burn  
II. A perfect Opera  
III. Deep down below  
IV. Every waking Moment  
V. Laugh in your Loneliness  
VI. Guide and Guardian  
VII. Promise me  
VIII. In the Darkness**

_Lo! the white-gleaming walls Of the world of yore  
The memory fading In the mists of time  
The bonds which were broken The bane released  
As the earth was shaken At the end of the age  
All the dread deeds done As Death was born  
None now remember And none will again  
How cataclysm came Cloaked in night and fire  
As the Fate of the Fateless Was full-wrought at last_  
–The Lay of the Shadow, Canto I

_Past the point of no return  
The final threshold  
The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn  
We've passed the point of no return_  
–Opera Ghost, Don Juan


	3. I Watch it burn

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Bloody messed up that last chapter's layout. grumbles Well, there's nothing I can do about it, I'm afraid._

_Bea: Oh, you're obsessed. Go paw Creedy, why don't you? lol Yes, that's indeed a Tolkienistic alliteration thingy. g_

_Ashley: Well, my odd kind of kidding. Yes, I _do_ fancy meeting you here. :) No, I'm not teasing you. I'm merely being a general nuisance. sweetly Patience is a viiir-tuuuuee… :P_

_Hotaru__: Chinese water torture? Oh my… Thanks for cleverly gluing my Erik's jaw's together, I do appreciate that. runs to devour the muffins Yessss! At last! pokes tongue out at Erik_

_The Musician of the Night: Oh, that's going to be difficult… It's kind of "Lodo", only that you pinch your nose hard for the first "o" so it sounds muffled. Yes, well… that's French to you. lol And it was me who wrote The Lay of the Shadow, not Tolkien. smug Well, in the story… you'll see. ;)_

…

…

…

**I. Watch it burn**

_The Pillars of Heaven were burning. Smoke and tongues of flame shot up from the crowns of the towers towards the darkened, lightning-torn sky, and where they had touched the stone, its white sheen was gone, turned to black, a black that swallowed all light._

_This was the end. At the last moment he had turned back, and he had tried to prevent what he had once wanted to happen, tried to stand in doom's way. But he had failed._

_How long he had fought here he did not know, only that all his limbs were aching, and that he could hardly keep himself upright anymore. Sweat and blood was soaking his clothing and running over his face, in places already drying, mingled with smears of soot._

_Was it still night? Was it day already? Or was it night again?_

_Or would there never be another day?_

_This was the end. The end._

_And he was glad it was. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he was glad. At last an end. At last._

_The end of pain._

_Roaring dire fury, a lizard half-breed, one of the Dragon-tamer's creatures, came charging towards him, its claws whipping through the air, its mad little eyes gleaming in the firelight. Without a thought, his sword-hand drew an arc at the height of his shoulder, and the creature's ugly head flew through the air, then fell into one of the dried-out fountains while its body slumped to the ground, whirling up ashes, and he stepped over it, already banishing it from his mind._

_There was only one thought, one desire, one obsession._

_Aminta, Aminta! Is this what I traded the world for, my honour, my duty? Is this the price for my treason? My love, my one and only... Is there no place in all worlds where you can be mine?_

_You betrayed me, Herald of Fate. All of you betrayed me. And even if they cast us into the Abyss, like they did with the Bearer of Light, even if we are never to see the light of the world again, even then I will never cease to pursue you. I will extinguish your Eye and spill your blood time and time again, for all of eternity, until my grief is quenched or you are truly dead. Or until the world ends completely, until the Bearer of Light returns to begin his reign of shadow._

_Blood for blood.__ Nought for nought._

_Just like it always was. Like it should have been._

_Curse the world! Curse all of it! All of it but her! Oh, Aminta..._

_And curse immortality, most of all!_

_Oh, how he hated this all, everything, the entire word! How he hated himself, more than anything else! There was a mad, raging fire inside him, a fire slowly consuming him, devouring him inside out, and still it could not destroy him. Nothing could._

_Destruction! Devastation! Complete annihilation! Everything was better than this eternal damnation he had to face. Pain, endless pain forever, and no end to it, no end! The world of the Divine was ending here, drowning in blood and fire and darkness, but not him. The Abyss consume him, not him! Not him!_

_Death! Forgetfulness, darkness over his senses forever! Deep, dreamless sleep for all of eternity! How he wished he could just cease to exist and never be again!_

_Around him there was death, nothing but death; servants' and creature's mangled bodies were strewn everywhere. But no death for an immortal, no death. Only the fire inside him, brighter, madder than the fire outside, but no death. No death for all of eternity._

_There was only one fire brighter than the one slowly and painfully eating his insides. Beneath the Dome of Eternity, in the halls of the Eldest King..._

_And at once there was hope, a desperate last hope. Maybe there was a way to pass into the Realm of Twilight, to be reunited with Aminta once more._

_With a thundering crash, a smouldering turret came tumbling down into the courtyard, scattering burning debris everywhere, but he hardly noticed it. The walls and parapets around him were crumbling, but he hardly saw them. And he did not care anymore. The entire world could burn down, for he did not want to see it any longer. There was only one thing he wanted to see, only her beloved face._

_Ducking under a crumbling archway, he began to run, past fallen bodies and smoking carcasses of beasts, past ruins, past fire and ashes. Few fighters were left, but he hastened past them without a second glance, paused only once for how long it took him to sever another lizard-man's head. So used he was to hunting and killing them, it had become second nature to him after all those long years of war, an entire age of the world outside. Out there, none remembered the days of old, the days of peace and blessing._

_As he beheld the ruins of his home now, he wondered if he truly did. It was so long ago…_

_At last he reached his destination, the great doors ajar and one half torn from its hinges, and as he entered the shadows of the building, he had to step over a mound of fallen bodies. The marble floor was slippery with blood, blood spilled in the halls of the Eldest King._

_Where fires should have been burning in braziers, he passed through shadows. Darkness had fallen in the very halls of the Eldest King._

_What would the halls of the Lord of the Shadows be like now? Had they dared to desecrate them as well?_

_His sword raised, though he knew this was blasphemy in itself, he at last entered the place once crowned by the Dome of Eternity, now lit by the raging flames from outside, just as if the sky above were burning, as well as a gentle golden glow, which still was there and always would, and as he stepped out into what seemingly had become a courtyard, towards the dais in its centre, he staggered, feeling how the flames inside him were enshrouding his heart._

_And then he realized that he was not alone._

_Before the dais, with his bow raised and an arrow already nocked, stood the Hunter, his tall, lean frame looming up eerily in the glow behind him, his lean features ghostly illuminated by the firelight crackling on the jagged remainders of the broken dome. "We meet again," he said quietly._

_He halted, and though his heart was withering away in his chest, he did not move, and their eyes met, their gazes locked. "Go away," he replied softly, and wrath was swirling up in him, making the storm inside him even wilder. "Go away." His voice was nothing but a hiss now. "I've told you before, you have your own quest, and I have mine."_

_"But where is your army?" The Hunter's sunken eyes gleamed in the flickering light of the flames above. "Where is it now? Have you sold it along with your loyalty?" The point of the arrow never moved. "Blood for blood. Nought for nought."_

_"How dare you speak those words?" he snarled, taking a few quick paces towards him. "Repeat them, and I will cut your tongue out!"_

_The Hunter's stare was cold. "How dare you still claim them, traitor? Come one step closer and I'll shoot you!"_

_"You think that frightens me?" No, nothing frightened him anymore. Nothing. This was over, forever over. Soon it would be. Very soon. If only that mindless fool stepped out of his way!_

_The Hunter's eyes gleamed, a deluding surface not revealing what lay beneath. He knew well how to bar the easiest way to his mind. "My arrows pierce everything, traitor. Armour as well as flesh. And soon one of them will pierce your heart."_

_To this, he only answered with a laugh, a cold, mirthless laugh that almost made himself shudder. He reached up to unbuckle his sword belt and breastplate and threw them to the ground with a derisive sneer. "This is how much your arrows scare me," he hissed. "Is there no other weapon you might employ? Or have you never learned to use another?"_

_"You leave me no choice." The Hunter's eyes narrowed as he loosed the arrow, and he felt it pierce his chest with a force that made him stagger backwards, yet he caught himself quickly enough. What did he care about that bit of pain? It was nothing compared to the one raging inside him. Breaking off the shaft right above the wound, and not even wincing at the sharp twinge of pain caused by moving the arrow, he threw it at the Hunter's feet and kept coming. His own blood was now soaking his shirt, and a warm, sticky rivulet was running down along his stomach, but he did not care. It did not matter. The wound was going to drain his energy quickly, but he did not need much time. Not anymore._

_A second arrow hit him, then a third, but each time he simply broke off the shaft to throw it towards the Hunter and did not allow them to stop him._

_Nothing could._

_And then he had reached the Hunter. Knocking the bow aside with ease so that the fourth arrow clattered to the ground uselessly, he gripped him by the collar and forced him aside. The Hunter was less tall than he appeared; only that he was lean made him seem so. "Out of my way," he snarled at him. "Or I will show you the meaning of true harm!"_

_"What do you intend to do with me?" The Hunter's fingers were searching for his throat, trying to close around it, but he pushed them aside. "You can't inflict any lasting harm upon me."_

_"Oh, but I can." Dragging him forward, he made him stumble up the steps leading onto the dais, poking him sharply in the side with his sword as he resisted. "What gives life can take life. Do you have any idea what you are facing?" And then the Hunter must have understood, for at once his smoky grey eyes widened with terror. "Yes," he hissed, grim satisfaction filling him at giving his old enemy so much fear. "The Ever-Burning Flame. Only what we came from can truly destroy us. Complete annihilation. Savour the sound of it."_

_"No!" The Hunter was thrashing around madly now, but his grip on his collar was firm, and still the tip of his sword rested against the Hunter's side. "You are mad! You are totally mad! You can't do this!"_

_"Don't tell me what I can and cannot!" he roared, sudden fury consuming him, made so much stronger by the torment raging inside him. "I've had enough of it! I can do as I please, curse you!"_

_"Not when you are dragged to justice first!"_

_"Ah, and you want to drag me to justice?" Again laughter shook him, a mad laughter he did not recognize as his own anymore. "You? You who failed in every aspect possible to defeat me? No, you're not good enough to accompany me where I'm going now. I'll leave you here, and with something to remember me by." Throwing him down, he thrust his sword into the Hunter's chest until he felt the resistance of the dais, and then, leaning onto the hilt as hard as he could, he forced it deeper, so that the blade ate its way into the stone beneath. "Stay here and watch how I pass into eternal glory."_

_And then he raised his head and savoured the golden glow he was bathed in. The Ever-Burning Flame. Never could it be extinguished until the end of the world, until the end of time, until the reign of the Eldest King ended. At his feet, the Hunter gurgled and cursed him, but he did not heed him anymore. He had dealt with that one._

_Grabbing hold of one of the chains holding what looked like a huge torch of gold in place, he pulled himself up. Already his strength was giving out, but it would last for that final step. Reaching the plate on which the most sacred of all fires burned, he was surprised that he felt no heat, no heat at all. Strange. But what did it matter? It would destroy him anyway; it would serve his purpose._

_Just one step, and it was over. Just one step._

_Drawing a deep breath – his last in this world, and so full of smoke and soot – he leaped._

_Aminta, I'm coming for you._

_And then the golden flames consumed him._

_And at once there was pain, pain beyond pain, a pain he had never felt before and none could endure, and he was burned, ripped, torn apart all at once, destroyed utterly –_

_Aminta! Aminta!_

He jerked awake, gasping for breath, and for a moment he had no idea where he was. Then he saw the weak sheen of candlelight coming in through the crude doorway of stone, shimmering through the hair-thin black curtains of his bed. Propped up on his elbows, his gaze turned up to the dark ceiling, he slowly regained his breath as the pain subsided, fading away with the fleeing dream. Slumping back into the pillows, he slowly, carefully raised a hand to his chest, searching for any arrow heads still embedded in his flesh, but there were none; he was unharmed. But his bare chest and shoulders were slick with sweat.

Sitting up again, he used the blanket he had just thrown back to rub himself dry, then wrapped his arms around his knees and closed his eyes for a moment. Immediately his vision filled with images of ruins and fire, and he hastily opened them again.

It was just a dream. Just a damn nightmare. Nothing more.

But it had felt so real. And it had felt so every time he had had it, every single night during those past ten days.

Curse those dreams. Why did his imagination have to run wild just now? He had dealt with those so-called Lost Ones months ago. It was over, and they would not come back. Yes, how could they, if practically all of them were dead?

But those stories... those accursed fairy-tales of Créon's! The leader of the Lost Ones had told him all those things, those filthy lies about them all being some kind of fallen angels who had tried to usurp the light and begin a reign of darkness or similar, and how they had been exiled from Heaven for punishment, cast out into the world to be reborn again and again, always outcasts among mankind, and branded with horrible scars to mark them as what they were.

Lies. Nothing but lies.

His fingers trembled as he raised his hand to the right side of his face, tracing the outlines of the scars marring his features. They all had had those scars, every single one of them, though not all had had them on their faces. But all of the Lost Ones had been scarred. And all on the right side.

No. He was not one of the Lost Ones, not one of the Fateless. It was by chance that he was scarred, by a cruel chance. He was just... just ugly, that was all. Just some ugly creature. Just some animal who shied away from the light.

And those dreams were nothing but figments of his imagination. Nothing more.

But Aminta...

No, he would not think about that now. Not again. Créon had been a sly and evil man to use just that name, to torment him so! And the face Créon had shown him, the face he had desired to see in his dream...

Slowly, involuntarily he turned his head towards the other side of the bed, where a blanket-covered mound lay, heaving slightly with soft breaths. Even without taking a closer look, he knew that she was fast asleep. He felt it. She was calm, sleeping dreamlessly, though a hint of unease, like a tiny buzzing fly in the back of his head, marred her slumber. Reaching out towards her with his mind alone, he passed his feelers over her gently, soothing her with his mental touch. Soon the fly-like feeling disappeared, and she slept quietly, as quietly as anyone could.

Softly, careful not to make a sound, he climbed out of the bed, slipping under the curtain and then rising to his feet. He shivered in the damp cold suddenly enveloping him, but everything was better than the heat from the fires in his dream, especially from those raging inside him.

Picking up the peculiar white half-mask from the floor beside the bed, he quickly covered the deformed side of his face with it, and he felt his features contort as he did so. How he hated himself, the repulsive monster that he was!

She would never love him.

Once again he turned to regard the peacefully sleeping mound on the other side of his bed. She was almost completely hidden beneath a pile of blankets, but a few dark, curled tresses lay spread over the pillow. He smiled as he regarded her, his heart filled with warm tenderness, but at the same time there was bitterness. She would never love him, whatever she said. She kept him company in the solitude of his dark dungeons, she showed him understanding and affection, she even slept beside him, but she never let him touch her, or at least not for long.

With an inaudible sigh, he scanned the dark room for the shirt he must have left somewhere here as he had prepared for bed – before inspiration had struck and he had picked up his robe and returned to the candlelight of the main room to write something down, that was – but he could not find it. Not that it really mattered. His robe, then. Where was his robe? Damn the thing, it could not just have disappeared together with his shirt! No, of course, he had spread it over his beloved as he had crawled back into bed, and she had woken up, smiled and wrapped herself in it before she had fallen asleep again. No chance of retrieving it now.

A fresh shirt then, perhaps? No, it was of no importance. He did not need one. The cold would do him some good, after that accursed nightmare.

Right now, he was ready to bet anything little Meg Giry had run off with his shirt.

Where was she, anyway? Upstairs already, no doubt. It must be morning already.

But that she had managed to sneak out without him noticing... It must have been the exhaustion; he had barely gotten a few hours' sleep all through those previous nights. When he had not been sitting at his organ composing, he had stalked the dark corridors of the Opera House upstairs, watching over its sleeping inhabitants.

The truth was, he was growing afraid of falling asleep. Of course, this was a foolish sentiment, but every night when he at last closed his eyes, he knew what dream was awaiting him, and he did not want to go through it all, not again.

Kneeling down where dark water licked the stone floor of the grotto that had been his home for many years now, he moistened his hands and face with it, then washed away the last traces of sweat. The sudden cold stung him like sharp icicles, yet compared to the heat from his dream, it was a welcome relief.

If it would only fade away completely, like the memory of most dreams did! But all details were as clearly before his eyes as those of a waking memory.

All those dreams were the same, exactly the same, and they never faded.

Hell devour him, it was not true! He was no angel, and he had never been one! Those crazy stories of Créon's had made his imagination run wild, that was all. And those names had just turned up in his nightmares because he had heard them from Créon – the Eldest King and the Lord of Shadows, whoever they were exactly, the Herald of Fate, which was the name Créon had given to himself, and the Dragon-tamer, who was Adhemar, another of the Lost Ones he had faced and defeated. But the Hunter... he did not remember that one, neither the name nor the face. Just some mad little figure sprung from his twisted fantasies, probably.

Again dipping his hands into the water, he used them to brush his tangled dark hair out of his face. It had grown long over the last months; he would have to cut it again one of these days.

Just as long as it was in those dreams.

Getting to his feet again, he shivered in the cold, and he hastened to step back onto the carpet, so that at least his bare feet were warm. No towels anywhere? Had the girls tidied up his home again, then? Oh, women and their obsession with neatness! How was he supposed to find anything in his own home when they thought they could tidy up everything?

Sighing, but not truly angry with those two – how could he? – he searched his lair for any suitable piece of garment. They couldn't have brought them all to the bedroom, could they? He always left something lying around, so there was some chance that... Yes, a sock. One single sock. Not of much use.

After another little bit of searching, he found the other sock of the pair beneath the organ bench, and with a slightly bad conscience towards the girls he placed both of them on the organ, where he would surely find them when he got dressed.

A movement at the edge of his vision suddenly caught his eyes, and his hand darted out to the dagger lying on a table nearby before he saw that it had only been his own reflection in one of the tall mirrors on the wall. Blowing out a breath he had not realized he had been holding, he dropped the dagger back onto the table again. Why did the girls always uncover those mirrors? What did they do it for? He did not like to see himself in them. Why he had those mirrors at all he did not quite know; probably just to torment himself.

He loathed himself just as much as he loathed the rest of the world.

No, there were exceptions. He loved Christine, more than anything else. And he felt affection towards Meg and her mother. And there were some others he accepted, women mostly, pretty young women. He liked pretty young women.

Just like some of those pretty young women seemed to like him.

Sauntering towards the uncovered mirror lazily, automatically acquiring just the kind of walk he used when he knew those girls were watching him, he regarded his own reflection critically. In his own opinion he was a tall, crude brute, a beast and nothing more, especially in this considerable state of undress, and wet as he was. The mask gave him an air of mystery, but without it... He did not want to think about it. Without it, he was disgustingly ugly. A monster. As long as he wore the mask, he could see to a certain extent why those girls liked him; the left side of his face was pleasant enough, if he shaved properly and brushed his hair back. And once he wore his black cloak... He ceased to be a mere man then. He became a mystery... a legend.

He was the infamous Opera Ghost, the Phantom of the Opera.

But in his current state, despite the mask, he was nothing but a man. And once he took off the mask, he was a beast.

He felt her before her reflection appeared in the mirror behind him. He always felt her, he always knew where she was. There was a bond connecting them, a tender, but unbreakable bond. And just as he was always aware of her, of her presence as well as of her thoughts and feelings, she was always aware of him. As she approached him, she let his robe glide off her shoulders, revealing a white nightdress, and gently put it around his own. "You're cold, Erik," she said.

"Don't," he answered, though he was glad for his soft robe's warmth. "Better me than you."

"I'm wearing more than you," she said reasonably. "And I'm not wet."

"It's nothing. Really."

"Oh, don't be stubborn. You were so cold it woke me up."

"I'm sorry, Christine," he murmured, ashamed of only thinking of himself and his own concerns, not of her. And the poor girl had enough worries of her own already without him adding to it all!

Smiling, she waved it away. "No need to be. Now back to bed you go."

"Back to bed? It must be morning already. Meg is somewhere upstairs by now."

"She is? Then she has surely left us a message." Christine scanned the room, then picked up a scrap of paper from the table holding the large stage model. "There. Listen. _Good morning, you lazy bums. _Ah, that's nice." She laughed, and he savoured the sound of it, like a clear spring on a mountainside, but warmer, so much warmer. "_I've gone to see my mother and then attend the rehearsal, and I've taken the dog out. Expect Gaston to bring her back when he comes down with your breakfast. Which reminds me: Mind you leave over a croissant for me, I'm sick of baguette for breakfast. Woe betide you if you don't. Yours always, Meg. _Now what do you say to this? Shall we leave her something?"

"She can have all of my breakfast if she wants. I'm not hungry." No, he did not feel like eating at all.

"Oh, Erik, that's very unreasonable of you," Christine protested. "You _must_ eat something. There's not as much as there used to be, I know, but there's enough still. You must eat as long as there's still enough."

"I'm fine," he muttered, waving her protests away. She should not worry about him. She should not worry at all.

The poor girl. If there just were any message, any message at all!

"And you're not sleeping enough," she continued, taking him by the arm and trying to steer him towards the bedchamber. "All the time you're down here, you're up and composing. Working at your Requiem, I suspect." As he did not let himself be just pulled away, she gave up and let him go, but still she stood before him and held his gaze firmly, her hands on her slender hips. "You shouldn't. It always leaves you in such a morbid mood. You had better work at your new opera instead."

"But I did," he protested, though he was slightly amused about Christine accusing him of morbid moods. At first, when he had taken her down here, she had been genuinely shocked as he had suggested to let her sleep in his bed and move back into his old coffin himself, the very same coffin which had served him as his bed many years ago, when he hadn't yet had his comfortable swan-shaped bed. Now _that_ had been quite a complaint about morbidity!

"You did?" She seemed delighted, for a moment apparently forgetting the worst of her worries. "Will you let me see?"

He nodded in the direction of the organ, which was covered in hand-written sheets of music, just as usual. "Feel free. I just finished the final scene."

"You did?" she said again, clearly pleased, and hurried over to the organ, which took up the middle of the grotto. Following her, he wrapped the robe around himself more closely, though he immediately let go of it as she turned around to him again. No, he would not admit he was cold. There were certain principles he could not just ignore. "You don't mind if I take a look, do you?" she asked.

"As I said, feel free." Ever since she had come down here to live with him – a full fortnight it was now – she had been very careful to respect his privacy. After all, she knew only too well what effect taking his mask away from him produced, and she did not want to repeat it with any other kind of thing. She did not want to hurt him, he knew, and she still was rather awkward around him sometimes when they were alone together, just as he tended to be somewhat awkward in her presence himself, though he hated to admit it. He knew she felt attracted to him, and very much so, but she could not just allow herself to show it, not in this situation. Especially not in this situation.

Oh, curse the boy, that silly little fop, for stealing her love from him! And curse him for being in danger and giving her constant worries! Curse him for having to go to war and leaving his young bride dreading to receive the message of his death every moment!

Of course it was not the boy's fault. He and Christine had been planning their wedding for August, actually – the Phantom still ground his teeth at the concept –, but then war had broken out in July, that accursed war against Prussia, and they had not seen the boy again since then. After all, he was a soldier, a lieutenant of the navy. At the call of the fatherland, he had no choice but to go.

Christine had continued living in the house of the boy's parents at first. Until a fortnight ago, that was. Until September 4th, to be exact, the day of the revolution. For even as the armies of Prussia and the other German states were approaching Paris, war had broken out among the city's own inhabitants. The old oaths to the emperor had been abjured, a new republic proclaimed, and immediately several parties among the Republicans had begun a struggle for supremacy, a bloody struggle carried out on the street, and before the German armies even reached the city, civilians had already died, men, women and children. At the moment it seemed that the Communards were gaining the upper hand, radicals who hated nobility and called all possession theft – which was an illogical statement in itself, but since when had the rabble ever known anything about logic? Since when did the scum of society possess brains? Anarchy and chaos reigned in the streets of Paris, and nobody was safe any longer, for those who managed to escape from that struggle for power over the city could easily be accused to be spies for the German army. And even as the city turned on itself, its battlements against the approaching enemy were still being erected, strong bastions and trenches ten feet deep. It seemed that everybody was fighting everybody, that the end of the world was there.

Known as royalists, the boy's parents had had to hide from the grasp of the bloodthirsty Communards by seeking shelter in the house of a faithful friend able to protect them, and Christine had come down here to live with him, to be protected by him, just as he had promised the boy he would. As long as she was down here with him, she was safe. And he would not allow any harm to come to her.

"You let it end with a duet between Oberon and Titania?" In the soft glow of all the many candles, Christine studied the pages she had picked up from the organ with interest. "I like the idea. And I must say I like your lyrics. Especially _immortally beloved_. It's beautiful."

The Phantom smiled at the compliment. Coming from her, it meant very much to him. "I'm not quite happy with them yet myself." And he had spent two hours at the very least poring over them last night, even though he felt that there was no need for hurry anymore now, not with the current situation. When the managers had asked for a new opera, they had not expected that there would be a war before the next opera season. The season had begun nonetheless, though they would not continue very long probably. Still the Opéra Populaire was more or less frequented, probably by those who tried to forget what was going on around them, but for how long still? This was a question he could not answer. But all the same, he was spending lots of time with working on what the managers had asked him to adapt: _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. They had wanted it to be romantic as well as comical, just what the public would surely appreciate, and he was doing his best to achieve this, especially since now his salary depended on what work he did. The jolly times when he had just had to blackmail the managers to receive all the money he needed and much more were over. Now he had the police keeping an eye on him and his activities, and he had to work like everybody else.

He wondered if he would have done it at all, if not for Christine, who was so pleased with him. And proud of him.

The only thing he truly regretted was that she was not singing anymore. After all, she was about to marry a vicomte. And the boy's parents had made it quite clear that while accepting their son's choice for a bride – which not all the relatives did by far – they would very much disapprove of her pursuing a career at the opera any further. It was just not considered proper.

Proper! Proper and decent! Just the usual brainless idiocies of a brainless society! How he hated them, hated all of it! He was not a proper person, either. He was not even fit to be considered human.

But Christine still sang for him, which offered him at least some comfort. They usually went through his newest instalments for his _Midsummer Night's Dream_ together, and this way he could even continue her lessons, though no longer as the invisible Angel of Music.

No. He was no angel.

"Shall we try it out later today?" she asked, putting down the papers again. She did not only do it to please him, he knew it, and he was glad she didn't. He would not have wanted her to otherwise.

Yes, he truly knew how she felt about it. After all, their minds shared the most remarkable connection, and he was not only teaching her about music, but about mind-reading as well, about how to analyze and interpret what of his thoughts and feelings arrived in her head, as well as how to find in his head what she wanted to find, how to employ a skill she had inherited from him in some strange way he did not understand until now, a skill which only worked on himself and no one else. He was making himself vulnerable to her, but he trusted her. And she was just as vulnerable to him, after all. Those moments searching each other's head were very intimate ones, but so was their connection in itself, very subtle and tender, and very intricate.

After all, he loved her.

He had only truly learned how to employ those particular skills he possessed when facing Créon and his minions. At first Créon had rendered him helpless using just the same methods, but then he had learned to master them, and he had fought back. And he had won. And not a small part of his success he owed to Christine, who had supported him in every way possible and given him the strength and courage he needed.

Raising his gaze to hers, he smiled. Their eyes did not have to meet to allow them access to each other's mind, especially not because of their connection, but it was much easier. Just barely touching her awareness with his mental feelers, he let her presence wash over him, the most intoxicating of drugs he could possibly imagine. The feelings arriving in his head uncalled for were much clearer now, curiosity and affection – actual affection! – as well as a little awkwardness, and behind it all the constant worry, the grief for not having seen her fiancé in considerable time, the fear of never seeing him again. Oh, and her presence alone, her adorable presence… He could forget everything else around him when he felt her near him, and her touch sent him to paradise.

How much he wanted her, how much he desired her…

As he came towards her, her mind was open to him, as it usually was, and he could practically see himself, with moist, tangled long hair and his robe hanging open to reveal a rather alluring physique; he felt that at precisely this moment he was sending gentle tingles through her body by his physical presence alone. His eyes gleamed oddly in the twilight as he lazily walked around her, studying her with his greedy gaze. Was this how she saw him? "So you will be my Elven-queen, and I will be your King?" he purred.

Christine nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Yes…" Her voice was barely a whisper, and he could feel the awkward feeling increase at the back of his head, where he always felt her. "But only for now, do you hear? Only for now!"

"Oh, but you want it. You want it very much. I know you do." Hell, how he wanted her!

As he grasped her shoulders, she turned her head away, so she would not have to look him in the eyes, to face those hungry flames. "Don't say that, Erik."

"Why not? Why not admit it?" Her obvious attraction to him thrilled him, filled him with an exhilarating joy.

"Please, Erik. Not now. If it truly is morning, Gaston will be there with the papers any moment. I can't just now."

The papers. He let go of her shoulders and bit his tongue, letting go of her mind as well. Every morning's loathsome procedure. Watching Christine tormented by anguish as she searched the names of the dead and wounded and of those whose whereabouts were unknown came so close to physical pain, and the knowledge that there was nothing, nothing at all he could do for her filled him with helpless rage at being so powerless, so unable to protect her against that kind of harm.

And surely enough, even as she said so, he felt Gaston approaching. By now he knew the man's presence well enough to recognize it easily at some distance, and his skills with recognizing presences at distances seemed to increase more and more altogether. After all, he had learned a useful little trick from Créon, a way to lay a web of mental feelers, of thin tendrils of his awareness, throughout the lowest cellar level. He did not shudder at the memory of the threads of darkness anymore, but still he felt very proud of his own threads of fire.

It did not take long for Gaston to reach them, and he brought the dog back down. Senta had grown considerably during the summer, and she was going to grow still, a large animal with shaggy black fur, flecked with white and a little bit of brown at head and chest and the tip of her tail, and with floppy ears flying in the air as she raced towards them, greeting them with merry barks and prancing up and down happily. She had gotten used to the gloom of the cellars soon enough, and though she clearly seemed to miss her master, she had made friends with the Phantom long before already, and the possibility of chasing rats always cheered her up.

Gaston came behind her, carrying a tray. Whatever the Phantom did, Gaston just could not be dissuaded from the concept that he was his servant. "Good morning, my Lord Phantom," he greeted him – yet another thing he stuck with stubbornly. "My Lady," he added with a bow towards Christine, and the Phantom was glad he did not refer to her as "Lady Phantom" yet; the poor girl would be so embarrassed. "Here's your breakfast."

"Just put it down on the table," the Phantom answered. As usual, he did not feel hungry. He just lacked the appetite.

Gaston did as he was told. He was a slim, dark-haired man and rather tall, with a pale, open face and thoughtful dark eyes. Once a servant boy in the house of a nobleman, he had long been working as a stagehand at the Opera House, yet as soon as he had gotten the opportunity, he had taken up his former occupation again, and he seemed as happy with it as a man could be. Strange, the Phantom found, for he was busy enough with his stage work, and who would ever desire to simply serve somebody? Yet Gaston did, and with a devotion that was truly surprising, given that he served a man hated and feared by most others. But ever since they had met face to face first, Gaston had been loyal to him, following him into darkness and battle even, and he had never stopped trusting him, not even when one of his friends had died down here, in this very place. Jean Hulot. The name was still branded painfully in the Phantom's memory. A man who had offered him his service and loyalty, and a man he had sworn to protect in turn. A man he had failed to protect.

"And the paper, my Lord." Gaston pulled a newspaper from the pocket of his jacket, unrolling it in the light of one of the many candelabras, and immediately Christine was with him, her features taut and pale. The Phantom hurried to follow, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. Please don't let his name be on the list. Please let him be alive.

But deep down inside him, there was a painful struggle going on. A dark, hate-filled part of him pushed away into the dark recesses of his mind longed very much to find the name _Raoul de Chagny_ among those of the soldiers reported dead. If the boy died, Christine would be his, and nothing would keep him from making her his any longer. Nothing would keep her from loving him instead of the boy, then.

Yet if Raoul died, it would cause her so much pain, and the Phantom wanted nothing less than seeing her in pain. Damn you, you little idiot, be alive!

And moreover, no enemy soldier had a right to harm the lad. If there was anyone who could mistreat Raoul in any way, then it was himself, and none other. He could kick him and push him around as much as he wanted, but nobody else was allowed to do so. Nobody else.

The boy was his –

No, not friend. Certainly not friend. Not that little idiot.

But perhaps… perhaps…

Oh, what did it matter, for Hell's sake? That annoying fop was not even worth the trouble to be pondered that way. He needed someone to keep an eye on him, that was all. Someone to keep him out of harm's way. Because Christine would be so sad if anything happened to the boy. For no other reason.

Letting the paper sink back down to the table, Christine let out a small sigh of relief, and slowly a smile returned to her pale face. As their eyes met, he saw new hope in hers. "Nothing," she said softly. "He's alive."

Another day won. Another day during which the boy could die any moment. She knew that as well as he did.

Blowing his breath out in frustration, he wrapped the robe around himself tighter. Not because he was cold, certainly not, just because of… style, yes. For reasons of style. "What news of the world outside?"

"Nothing truly new, my Lord Phantom. They say part of the army from Sedan is in retreat, coming back to the city to protect it. And Metz still stands."

Yes, that was Gaston, always the optimist. "You realize that the armies at Sedan capitulated almost twenty days ago? That thousands and thousands were made prisoners, together with the emperor? Gaston, those armies were _destroyed_. Perhaps a few individuals escaped, but never enough to get in the way of the battalions coming to take the city. And it's a long way from Sedan."

"But Metz has not fallen yet," Gaston insisted, and the Phantom caught a flicker of fear in his eyes, of despair. "Metz still stands!"

It was cruel, but it had to be said. "For how long still? They are completely cut off from the world outside. Even if they are ready for a long siege, there's nothing we can expect from them. And certainly not in time. They can keep some German contingents busy, but that's about all. How long still until we are cut off from the rest of the country ourselves?"

Gaston bit his lower lip, his gaze cast down to the ground. "I spoke to a man of the National Guard," he answered tonelessly. "The siege ring will close today."

"What of Raoul?" Christine suddenly interjected, agitated. "If the ring around Paris closes…"

"Damn it, my Lord, it can't just close like that!" Gaston cried. "There are still enough able-bodied men in the city! A number large enough to hold them off! And even as we speak, Léon Gambetta is mustering new armies in the west –"

Didn't he understand? "You forget the current situation," the Phantom cut him off, and Gaston fell silent without any further protest. "There are still enough to defend the city for some time, but they lack the morale."

Gaston's eyes widened in disbelief. "My Lord… you don't mean to say that they're afraid, or that they're traitors? No, you can't mean that!"

To Hell with it, why did he have to explain everything? "What is your own political belief, Gaston? Where does your loyalty lie?"

"With my fatherland, my Lord Phantom."

Too promptly a reply to be a good one. "Specify."

"I…" For a moment Gaston's gaze flickered towards Christine uncertainly. "I'm a royalist, my Lord. With your permission, my Lord."

"Good. I expected nothing else." What did the foolish man fear? There was no reason to care for his political opinion, as long as he was no Communard. "Now think of all the soldiers still in the city, waiting for their orders. Who is authorized to give them? Gambetta, who is a Republican? Delannay and the others of the Commune? Is it not to the emperor that they swore their oath? You speak of treason, but what is treason in this situation? Who are the traitors? The republicans, the royalists, or rather the Communards?" As understanding began to dawn on Gaston's face, he knew that what he was trying to make clear to him was not in vain. This was something Gaston would remember. "There is no good and evil in this world, Gaston, not like it is in the stories. There are only various different sides. There is no black and white. There are only shades of grey." As Gaston nodded slowly, he continued, "And this is the choice those soldiers have to make, with nobody who can answer that question truthfully for them, nobody but themselves. Perhaps the Communards can force them to fight for them. But for those who have made a different choice, will fighting for them not be fighting their own ideals at the same time? Fighting themselves? Could _you_ imagine giving your blood and life for the Communards?"

"I would be giving it for the fatherland." Yet in his dark eyes, there was no resolution left, no gleam. They were just dull and dark now. Even hope seemed to be gone from then.

"Is this still your fatherland, Gaston?"

Gaston opened his mouth as if to argue, then closed it again, and at once his lower lip trembled slightly.

Sometimes it hurt to realize the truth.

"I wish this all were over," Christine said quietly. "Even if this means that the Prussians take the city. I wish there were no more war."

The Phantom nodded. "Many think that way. Does that make them traitors, Gaston?"

"I don't know, my Lord. I don't know anymore." Never had he seen Gaston so downcast. But what else should he expect, after shattering the man's entire world before his very eyes?

No, not his entire world. There was still something left for Gaston to believe in. There was that picture in his head, that idolized figure of a near-messiah the Phantom did not quite understand. There was still the Lord Phantom.

I'm not your saviour, Gaston, he thought. Not yours and not anyone's. But he could not just take from him all that was left to cling to. He could not be that cruel.

How should he teach Gaston he was no angel?

Senta chose precisely that moment to come bounding back towards them out of the darkness, wagging madly and carrying a dead rat between her teeth, apparently very pleased with herself. She skidded to a halt right before him and placed the mangled little cadaver directly in front of his feet, then sat back on her haunches and looked up at him expectantly, her white-tipped tail still swishing over the floor.

The Phantom almost rolled his eyes. Yes, exactly what he had needed right now. Not only was she molesting him with a not exactly appetizing dead thing, but also drawing attention to the fact that he was still walking around barefoot.

But the dog meant well. Very far from trying to annoy him, she was trying to please him.

With a sigh, he reached down to pat her head. Once Gaston was gone, he would need to have a little conversation with Senta, a conversation of the kind only he could have with animals. But not now. If Gaston realized he could communicate with animals, he might well erect an altar for him or similar.

"If the ring closes now," Christine began again persistently, "what happens to Raoul?"

There was no answer but the truth. "He will be cut off, I expect. For however long the siege lasts." It was not what she wanted to hear, but there was nothing else he could tell her. "Maybe it will comfort you a little when I tell you now that he might be better off than we are."

"What if he's a prisoner?" Even without being able to feel what she felt, he would have heard the welling-up tears in her voice.

"There are many things you may call the Prussians and their king, Christine. Hungry for power they may be, and ruthless in achieving what they are striving for, but never honourless. If he is a prisoner, Raoul will be treated well."

"If I only knew where he is!"

Reaching out towards her, the Phantom comfortingly stroked her dark locks. "Wherever he is, he's alive. And he can take care of himself. He's not that stupid." Though he would much rather have him somewhere near to keep an eye on him, because he did not trust the boy's mental capacity too far.

Christine nodded bravely, though she still was at the brink of tears. No, this was truly not the time for him to trouble himself and her with nightmares. She needed him, and she needed him to be strong. And so did Gaston, come to think of it. He could not afford to be weak now, to have his own fears and doubts. For their sakes, he had to be strong.

"Eat something," he told her gently. "I'll prepare a hot bath for you, then join you." Heating the water for the tub down here was troublesome, but since Christine very much enjoyed soaking in hot water, he took care of it without protest, rather dissuading her from telling him not to trouble himself too much for her sake. As long as she was happy, he would put up with any kind of toil gladly. Even with that silly boy who was her fiancé. "I'd give you the robe back, only I'm afraid it's a bit wet by now."

Smiling despite the glitter in her eyes, Christine reached up to stroke his unmasked cheek briefly, and the light touch of her fingertips filled him with a warm, gentle kind of joy. "Don't worry, I've got one of my own." And with this she headed off towards the bedchamber, carrying the breakfast tray, with Senta trudging after her wagging lazily.

The poor girl. She was so desperate with worry for her fiancé. Curse it all, if he only knew where the boy was! If he only knew! He could not watch Christine tormenting herself any longer.

"Listen," he told Gaston, suddenly decided, "prepare my horse for after today's rehearsal. I'm going out."

Gaston regarded him with surprise, yet nodded in obedience. He would still have done so if the Phantom had told him to empty a vat of paint over the managers for the greater good, the Phantom suspected. "Yes, my Lord. César will be ready for you. May I inquire where you are going, in case there is anything else I need to prepare?"

"Out," the Phantom replied firmly. "As long as the ring is still open, I'll use the opportunity. I have no idea when I'll be back, but I'll locate Raoul, and drag him back here by his silly sailor's collar if need be."

"But my Lord," Gaston protested, "what if you're not back in time? It's going to close _today_! And besides, begging your pardon, my Lord, but how will you ever find him?"

"If anyone can find him, I can." Yes, and even if he had to ride for days and days. He would not watch Christine suffer any longer; he would not return without at least a message from her fiancé. Just anything to make her happy – and to once again prove his undying love to her. "And let _me_ worry about that siege ring."

Gaston bowed his head. "As my Lord Phantom commands."

Watching Gaston's retreating back, the Phantom briefly wondered whether he was doing the right thing, keeping the man as a servant. It was what Gaston wanted, though, as foolish as that might seem. It was Gaston's own private kind of happiness.

Spirit of a slave, curse him.

No. Not a slave. Gaston was a free man, but he had made a choice, and he had sworn to follow the Phantom.

A vassal.

With a twitch of his lips, he banished the thought from his head. It sounded good, but it sounded too much like the world of his nightmare.

He would go and join Christine now. She needed him with her, he was certain. He could feel she did, and he did not like to let her alone with her own dark thoughts, gnawing at her like cruel little rodents, and a kind of rodents which could not just be swatted off.

After all, he knew this kind of thoughts. And he was no stranger to darkness.

No, not indeed.

But even as he turned to go, his own reflection caught his eye once again. Long strands of hair were framing his face, hanging down to his shoulders. Automatically he brushed them back behind his ears, but this moment had been enough to bring back to him an image seen several times in visions and similar. An image Créon and his men had shown him. Himself, as he had been in the nightmare.

No, not me. Not me. I'm no angel.

But as he looked at his own face now, there were other names coming to his mind, apart from his own. _Keeper of the Gates._ _Wraith._

_Traitor._


	4. II A perfect Opera

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the delay. This should have been up three days ago already, but my parents were out and I had such a lovely new Harry Potter video game… well you can probably imagine._

_Alisendre__: Ah, see who's back in action. ) Not too many old characters by now (oh well, Gaston was in it, apart from the non-original two, and Créon and Adhemar were at least mentioned), but there'll be more in this._

_TheQueenSarah__: You know, that really calms me. I was afraid you were one of those people who wanted to see me burn in Hell because of the pairing. Not paranoia, I had such reviews already, reviews which only consisted of protest and similar. The trouble is, I take everything seriously that is not marked with a smiley. Well, if this is so, then you can bring up your preferred pairing all over the place. Actually I would have made Raoul go for Meg if not for my sister's preferences, but here we are, jolly pairing-juggling getting even worse. Bea has a list of all possible and impossible pairings, I think, and it's rather long, a lot longer than for the first part. :D Actually, this is not my first war. Not by far. My first war fic was written when I was nine, and I do like a good battle every now and again. ;)_

_The Musician of the Night: How mean of you, trying to abuse my Erik! lol YOU may like his dreams, but HE doesn't. (There are five flashback chapters/dream sequences yet waiting to be shoved into the chapter list, where there are several more…)_

_Bea: Thinking of Boromir? Yes, this is what I did. (I also think about Boromir when I see pictures of Saint Sebastian the martyr. I call him Saint Boromir, even. My mother hates it and tells me to stop being blasphemous every time. lol) What's so exciting about the Hunter? Well, remind me to send you my lovely "Hunter/Aeternus" pic, then. ;) Gaston? And who keeps telling me she isn't into Christian Bale, eh? lol_

_Polly: Trust me, I got those already… Not that I wouldn't enjoy killing the fop… or no, not killing, but tormenting him a bit… evil snicker_

_Hotaru: Yes, I thought a bit of Shirtless Erik might please you ladies. After all, I got requests for having him take off his shirt some more in the sequel. lol No, feel free to use that pun, I don't mind… much. ;) MUFFINS! pushes basket with sticky muffins towards Phantom Phantom snatches a muffin a shoves it between his author's jaw's forcefully Mmmmff! ;-)_

_Ashley: Yet another appreciator of "shirtlessness" ;-) No, apparently no results of the kind you're expecting._

_Nugrey__: Usually sequels aren't better than originals, but I'll try hard. ;-) I have a distinct feeling I cut out too much detail about the Hunter, but he'll reappear anyway. I'm glad you liked the descriptions. And that quote you were wondering about… it was me who wrote it. And there'll be more about it several chapters later on…_

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**II. A perfect Opera**

The city of Paris had many theatres, several of which played operas at least part of the time. Those which were solely opera houses were only three: The Opéra Comique, smallest of the three, and the two eternal contestants, as the newspapers liked to call them, the Grande Opéra and the Opéra Populaire.

During the last season, the Opéra Populaire had clearly been the public's favourite, with all its gossip and strange rumours and the scandal stories seeping out – until the fire in February, at least, which had forced the managers, Messieurs Gilles André and Richard Firmin, both formerly dealers in the department of old metal and other kinds of junk, to cease all productions for over two months. Naturally the Grande Opéra had made quite a fortune in that time, and they truly needed it, since they currently had a new opera house built, one larger and, as they said, more magnificent than that of the Opéra Populaire.

Those of the Opéra Populaire merely laughed at that. Larger it might be, they said, yet more magnificent? Never! And until it would be completely finished at last, ages would pass, anyway. Especially since now it served as a storehouse, and the many ardent struggles fought over its possession between Republicans and Communards had done considerable damage to the structure.

So what, said those of the Grande Opéra. This war would be over one day, and then the new opera house's interior would be completed, and then…

Yes, what then? Those of the Opéra Populaire could only laugh at that. The new Grande Opéra was going to be the largest in all of France, what with its seventeen floors and all, and its opening might well going to be a major sensation, one the public would talk about weeks before and for weeks afterwards, but so what? There was something they didn't have, something which the Opéra Populaire was famous for.

The Opéra Populaire had the Opera Ghost.

There were all kinds of stories about the Ghost. He was a former rat-catcher, an evil genius, an angel descended unto earth or the emperor's illegitimate son, depending on the source. They said that he could be in two places at once and could dissolve into thin air when he stepped into the shadows. Most stories had in common that he lived in the cellars, deep under the earth, but in some he lived in a house in a bizarre underground landscape he had carved from the rock himself, whereas in others he just slept on a cot in a corner, heedless of the cold and the moist ground and walls. Many said that he could see in the dark just as well as in the light. Of course he saw and heard everything, and when the walls sighed and the floors creaked, they said that this was because of his bad mood.

But who was he really? Nobody seemed to know. Some said he was human, whereas others said he was a spirit and nothing more, and there were many opinions inbetween.

What they all agreed on, however, was that he wore a flowing black cloak and a white half-mask covering only one side of his face.

Some women said that he was stunningly handsome, too. And some of those claimed that he would come to them at night from time to time, though those were the ones who squealed loudest and ran first when he appeared somewhere.

Funny, thought the Opera Ghost. How was he ever supposed to come to those rooms or dormitories, then, without waking up the entire Opera House?

Currently the Phantom, as he preferred to refer to himself, was sitting on an enormous upturned bucket in the hindmost corner of the stage, studying a letter while keeping half an eye on the rehearsal going on around him. People did not run squealing anymore, as long as he sat still, at least, but they stayed clear of him, which gave him all the privacy he needed.

Only a short time ago, they would not even have stayed long enough to look at him twice. They would have fled in terror. But now, after the whole incident with Créon and his Lost Ones, they seemed to have gotten used to him at last.

And some actually liked him.

With a small, slightly lopsided grin, he smoothed out the letter he was busy with. Actually he had finished reading it earlier on already, but it always calmed people when he was apparently busy with something else. Not that he did not want to scare them – he rather enjoyed at least unsettling them regularly – but if he seemed to be too busy watching the ballet practising, all the little ballerinas might start falling over themselves, which would annoy the ballet mistress to no end.

And once she was annoyed… Well, it was best not to be in her way, then. The Phantom was one of very few who did not dread her wrath. He merely found it bothersome. But to annoy her now, when he knew there was such a lovely-looking, freshly baked cake waiting up in her apartment, was… unwise.

The music stopped as the ballet instructor raised her slender cane slightly, and immediately she started giving out criticism. Claire Giry had been the Opéra Populaire's prima ballerina for many years before she had taken on this post, and she was just as hard with the girls as she had been with herself in her own years of training. An old sergeant would run in terror from Claire Giry, some of the ballet members joked. Yet they never forgot to add that she possessed a kind heart underneath. Clothed all in black, her blond hair braided intricately, Madame Giry moved with grace among a line of young men costumed in white and blue, demonstrating to them what they had been doing wrong, while all the others watched.

Most of the others. One of the girls, a pretty blonde one of about seventeen years, turned and sought the Phantom's eyes. As their gazes met, she winked.

With a small smile, he winked back. There were some even he considered friends.

And because the girls beside her were looking now, too, he tugged at his shirt a bit, making sure it allowed them just a little glimpse more of bare skin than they would usually see. After all, he thought, grinning to himself wryly, he had a reputation to keep up.

There were certain things he always did for that reason, like bringing his wide black cloak with him, even though it was warm enough by far to go without one. Currently the cloak lay draped over a stack of chests beside him, and he was sitting there in his bronze-coloured silken waistcoat, which he wore hanging open over a white dress shirt, on which he had left the topmost buttons open just as well. His black cravat was untied, hanging around his neck like an unknotted scarf. Well, so much for wearing his evening dress in the middle of the day, another of those things people said about him. At least he was wearing part of it. The trousers did not quite belong with it, though that was not obvious from some distance, as they were just as plain black as they were supposed to be, and neither did the boots, and certainly not the sabre which stood propped against the stack of chests beside him. But there were certain precautions one simply had to take in times like these.

Of course he wore his mask, too. He always wore it, even when he was alone. He did not suffer anyone to behold the right side of his face uncovered, and even those few who knew him well rarely ever saw what he looked like underneath. This way, he might even be considered attractive, though perhaps in a rather exotic way, and that he wore his dark chestnut hair bound together with a leather cord at the back of his neck increased that impression. But when he was unmasked… No, he did not even want to think about it.

Forcing the thought away, he bent over the letter again. The Comte de Chateaupers. He should have guessed. Gérard de Chateaupers was his most frequent visitor, and still he was polite enough to announce himself.

By now, at least. Earlier on, it had been different.

Gérard de Chateaupers was head of the Criminal Police, and the Phantom had been in quite a bit of trouble with the police during the last months, to say the very least. Now, he was not exactly in trouble anymore, yet it was best to do what Chateaupers wanted, or to follow his advice, as the man would have put it, to stay out of trouble.

Glaring at the letter, the Phantom growled throatily. Nearby, a passing stagehand jumped and ran in horror, but the letter remained utterly unimpressed.

Curse the stupid thing.

On stage, the ballet and chorus members scattered, signalling that there obviously was a break, and several of the musicians rose from their seats and left the orchestra pit. Looking up briefly, the Phantom folded up the letter and stuffed it into his trouser pocket, all the time watching the young blond ballerina, who was now coming towards him in a merry, prancing kind of step, the silly girl, already giggling about something. Meg Giry was a sweet little thing, but sometimes she was just too cheerful.

"Erik! You would never believe what Xavier just did!"

He sighed. "Yes, fine. No need to shout."

"Oh, drop it," protested a dark-curled youth who had followed her, groaning dramatically and rolling his eyes. "It's not that funny, really."

"Yes it is!" trilled Meg and poked her tongue out at him.

"Yes it is!" echoed a pretty brunette who had come up behind the young man.

"Marie? That's utterly disloyal of you," complained the youth, his boyish face contorted into a grimace of staged outrage.

The girl grinned. "You shut up, Xavier."

"Yes, that's right," Meg agreed, giggling. "You shut up."

"Lord in Heavens!" The boy threw the Phantom an agonized look. "Those women are a nightmare!"

Oh, those ballet members and their foolish little games! And actually thinking he would join in! No, he never bickered. "Well, you know how women are. Always trying to boss you around." He merely made a few remarks, that was all. "To compensate for their lack of practical intelligence."

Now it was the boy's turn to giggle, which he did in a rather girlish way.

"Now, Erik," cried Meg, waving her forefinger in the air, "I'm taking none of this nonsense from you! Lazing around in a corner and nagging, eh? And insulting decent young ladies? Perhaps you are trying to compensate for a lack of female attention and entertainment."

"A very male thing to do," remarked Marie sweetly. "They always think we're there to entertain them, when really it's the other way round." And they exchanged a glance and giggled together. Although Marie was in her mid-twenties already, while Meg was only seventeen years old, those two were very close friends.

"Oh, you pair of hags," said the boy. "Aaargh!" For Marie had poked him in the ribs with a sharp finger.

Yes, they really expected him to play along. What a bothersome lot they were. Leaning back comfortably, he lazily stretched his limbs, signalling he was at his ease completely. Although this should have been a harmless gesture, it had a tendency to unsettle others, to make them uneasy. The Phantom did not quite understand why – perhaps they saw a threat in it? – yet he noticed its effect and regularly employed it.

"Who are you trying to impress, Erik?" Meg was grinning broadly, her hands on her hips. "Wait 'til I jump onto your lap and ruffle your hair until it's over with your Opera Ghost dignity forever!"

Oh, the _brat_! "You watch your tongue with me, piglet, or you'll end up hanging in the flies somewhere, preferably with your legs up." Those threats were very effective usually, since everybody knew what the Phantom was capable of.

"Yes, you listen to the man, _piglet_," Xavier said triumphantly. "I'll be quite eager to assist him." And he beamed at the Phantom.

The idiot. But for some reason, the Phantom found himself grinning back at the silly boy. He was getting far too soft-hearted, he really was!

"You shut up, Xavier," the girls chorused.

The Phantom almost laughed.

"What's the meaning of this, being merry without us?" Four others had come to join them, a pair of lovely girls looking very much alike, except that one of them had darker hair than the other, and two men, one of them Gaston, the other a tall fellow with dark, curly hair and surprisingly green eyes. "You'll have to wait for us the next time," the girl with the darker hair continued, waving a finger in the air in mock indignation.

"Don't reproach the Lord Phantom, Geneviève," Gaston warned, frowning at her.

Oh, Gaston… Always so obsessed with showing proper respect. For all the Phantom cared, he could have slapped him on the back when coming to join him, and he would not hurt him for it. Well, not much, at least.

"Oh, Gaston, give it a rest," sighed the other girl, wearing a jolly, charming smile. "Ickle Erik can stand up for himself." And all four girls present broke into giggles once more.

Little Victorine Poussepain. Ever since the Phantom had included her and her elder sister Geneviève, both chorus girls, on his list of those precious few who could truthfully say they knew him a little better, the girl had used her impertinent little tongue on him, a tongue sometimes even worse than little Meg Giry's. But he did not truly care, not since it had become clear that Victorine practically idolized him, not unlike Gaston in a manner, though in a different way. And sometimes the girl, though not much older than Meg, would fuss over him like an old hen, which was not only highly amusing, but also earned him a handful of treats from time to time. Yes, of course he could afford all the chocolates he wanted himself, but being fed a box of them one by one was just too much fun to refuse, although it was a rather undignified way of eating chocolates. Well, sometimes you just made exceptions. Especially for a pretty girl.

Gaston merely rolled his eyes at Victorine. After all, he knew her just as well as the Phantom did.

Victorine threw her elder sister a glance, but Geneviève said nothing, just smiled and yawned. As if she had worked that hard during the rehearsal!

"_So_," said Xavier, grinning at her, "have you been up again all night, perhaps partying with the Opera Ghost?"

It had become a phrase by now, and one frequently heard at the Opéra Populaire, and it described doing something unusually daring or foolhardy. But in this context, it got yet another meaning: All those present had indeed done similar things already, or at least they had been up in the middle of the night having a little secret gathering in their night things with the Phantom lurking in a corner somewhere, enjoying a cool drink.

"I wish," Geneviève replied with a smile. "No, I'm just normally tired. We have a tiring chorus master." To which Victorine nodded readily.

So she liked those occasions, now did she? How nice to hear. For twice those little meetings had ended with the Phantom curled up snugly between the sisters in their bed, sleeping peacefully after having his chest patted and his hair stroked. As Meg had observed, he was becoming a kind of Don Juan as far as lovely young girls were concerned, though a harmless one, as she had concluded, since all he aimed for was a quiet little snuggle and the occasional kiss.

But the time would come when he would be known to ravish virgins, he thought, smirking to himself.

Quietly Christine slipped into their semi-circle, merrily greeted by the others, her former colleagues, and the Phantom tried not to eye her with longing. Though he did his best to suppress it, he desired her just as much as he loved her. But she was so pure, so innocent, whatever had been between her and Raoul; he could not just take advantage of her. He would never betray her trust.

And she loved another, and all he wanted was for her to be as happy as possible, even if it broke his heart…

No, he would not think about it now. Not again.

This, and those nightmares. It was eating him up slowly from inside.

Looking up again, his eyes met those of the last of the four who had joined the group recently. Serge was a serious, silent man, surrounded by an air of quiet , even mysterious dignity which was quite unusual for a stagehand. Ever since Joseph Buquet's untimely, but utterly non-regrettable death, he had taken over responsibility for the flies, and he did his duty with a quiet efficiency quite characteristic for him. He and Gaston had been the first to follow the Phantom, together with Jean Hulot, who was now dead, but he had caught the Phantom's attention before that already, because he was different from others. He did not speak much, but when he did, it became clear that he looked deeper and perceived things that remained hidden to others.

And now there was an unspoken question in his eyes, a question only too easy to read, and the Phantom wondered whether any of the others, including Meg even, had noticed at all what Serge had noticed: Serge knew that there was something wrong.

For a moment the Phantom just held his gaze, then he answered it with a short nod. Yes, he was fine. He was just fine.

He was not quite sure whether Serge was going to believe him, though.

"What are you all standing around for?" Madame Giry's voice rang out across the stage, making Marie jump. "Back to work, you lazy lot!" Everybody ran back to his place as she told them to, waving her cane at stragglers, and the jolly chaos of the time immediately before a rehearsal's beginning ensued, a chaos which sometimes continued well into the rehearsal, too. "Christine, come here, we need somebody to stand in for Cécile, she's ill."

"That's what _she_ says," Meg muttered as she returned to the ballet formation.

Watching the others take their places again, the Phantom smiled. When observing their practising, one could almost forget that there was war outside. The Opéra Populaire was a small world of its own, a place of peace in an otherwise stormy ocean.

For how long still, though? For how long?

And then he tensed as he suddenly felt something. No, it couldn't possibly be –

Picking up his cloak and sabre, he very quietly edged away into the backstage area and into the darkness of the corridor leading down to the old chapel and into the cellars. Once he was out of sight, he began to run.


	5. III Deep down below

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: My great-uncle found an old photograph of Hermann Lando among his stuff, taken 1878 or later. I can scan it for you if you like, once Lando has appeared, though he'll look a bit different here._

_Alisendre__: I do enjoy the occasional cliffhanger… And I hope you'll like the bit about purring in the chapter after this one, too. ;)_

_Bea: Still, you have an interesting relationship towards Christian Bale. g Wouldn't we all be good boys (or, in most of your cases, girls) for a piece of cake? ;) Oh, and I do like my Harry Potter video games. I'm Quidditch Cup winner and Duelling champion! And a basilisk slayer, don't forget that. )_

_Ashley: Correct spelling, yes. Shall I send my Phantom to reanimate you? ;-)_

_TheQueenSarah__: Lovely long review. drools happily I always find those very useful. :D As for the beginning with the legend and all that, I wanted to offer you all some information about what's going on outside, so to say, how the public reacts, something I've been definitely neglecting in the first part. No, there's no special reason for Chateaupers's first name, I just used a French name that was common at that time, as far as I know. And the accent is no in-joke, it belongs to it (or else all the touchy Frenchmen get sulky, trust me g). Hmm, line-listing… It's very useful to know which lines were good. Yes, you've got the chocolate picture just right. ;-) The bit about the stormy ocean outside is a nice thing since it carries some foreboding, which is the reason why I used it. Nothing said… whistles innocently_

_Nugrey__: Since I had introduced Serge in The King of the Catacombs already, I knew him well enough to know I couldn't just re-introduce him like any other, because I assume your expectations were higher. This way, I had him stay in character while I could introduce him with a very characteristic feat of his to all the new readers._

_The Musician of the Night: Wait and see… :D_

_Lady Baelish: I wondered whether you are to be taken seriously, then decided you aren't, since the vocabulary you use is just too odd. I doubt you got any further than the cast list. Nice to know that there are people who can be entertained so easily, though._

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**III. Deep down below**

Sprinting along a dark passage leading deep down into his lonely dungeons, the Phantom knew exactly who awaited him. Clearing a barrier of fallen debris easily, he slipped through a well-hidden trapdoor, grasped a metal bar sticking out of the wall at an odd angle, then let himself drop down to the ground below lightly. He knew this place as well as nobody else did, having spent many years down here in the darkness, and he could see clearly where others would have had some difficulty with recognizing their surroundings. But he could just as well have found his way with his eyes closed. After all, he was at home here.

After a few strides, there was a wall barring his way, but a few quick touches of his skilled fingers made what seemed like an insurmountable barrier shift aside with a low, grinding sound, and he slipped through without waiting for it to fully open, activating the mechanism to close it as soon as he was through. It was all a simple trick of using the right amount of counterweights in the right places – or maybe not so simple, for when he had tried to explain it to Serge, who knew something about counterweights from his work in the flies, after all, it had taken the man a rather long time to understand, even though he certainly was not stupid. Yet to the Phantom, it was so easy, so very obvious. He did not quite see where the difficulty lay. Just like it had taken him some time to understand that there were very few, if any at all, who could listen to an orchestra passage they had never heard before and then write the score down from their memory.

He was different. He was special.

But he had paid dearly for those gifts.

As he came into his lair through the side entrance, he forced himself to walk slowly, even though he felt more like racing all the way. Yes, he had indeed been right. The feeling was unmistakable now; the knowledge of who had come to visit him was just as certain as if he stood opposite the intruder and looked him in the face.

How did he feel about it? He really couldn't say.

Frowning, he ascended the steps leading up to his bedchamber, careful to take them at a lazy saunter. No need to hurry. No reason to hurry. None at all.

And there he was, the intruder who deserved to be thrown into the cold water outside for his impertinence of occupying the Phantom's bed. Well, at least he had taken his boots off. Wearing his boots in bed was the Phantom's very own prerogative, and no one else's. And he was actually grinning at him, detestable little slimy creature that he was. The cold water was too good for him. Slow torture, that was a fitting reaction. The Phantom smirked. "Good morning, kid."

"Call that morning?" Raoul de Chagny's grin even broadened. "It must be going on midday. Of course, someone like you probably starts his day shortly after lunch usually and stays up until others take their breakfast." Picking himself up, he swung his legs, still clad in white uniform trousers, out of bed. "Erik, old villain! So good to see you again!"

"Cut the chatter," the Phantom grumbled, trying hard to keep a straight face. Hell devour him, and that silly boy as well! He was truly going soft inside. "How am I supposed to put up with you when you get on my nerves straight away?"

The boy flashed him a bright grin, which made him look younger than he was – and he was only just twenty-one, the Phantom knew – and climbed out of bed at last. "Just for once admit you're pleased to see me."

"No," the Phantom replied stubbornly. "Not in my bed. Christine will be pleased, though." And just as always, saying so gave him a slight twinge of pain, like a stab with a needle.

In the flickering candlelight, the boy's eyes seemed to shine. "Where is she?"

"Upstairs. Attending the rehearsal." And with a bit of cruel satisfaction, he added, "You can't see her now."

"Ah." Clearly Raoul was disappointed. "I'll wait for her here, then."

"I never said you could."

"No?" Raoul flashed him another grin. "Oh, c'mon, don't pretend to be a grumpy old dragon. Besides," and here the grin swiftly faded again, leaving a serious expression which suddenly made Raoul look a lot more mature than the Phantom remembered him, "Maurice said you'd take me in."

"Did he?" Grumpy old dragon? The cheek of him!

"Erik… What's really going on here?"

Regarding the youth, it truly seemed to the Phantom that he now looked a lot more mature than when he had last seen him. Maybe this came from having cut his hair shorter, so that now the boy's ears were still covered, but it was no way as long as it had been before, yet this was not all. Wasn't it said that everybody looked older when he returned from war? The Phantom was not quite sure where he had heard that, but it seemed right. What the boy must have seen on the battlefield certainly had been worse than what he had seen in his company, when they had been hunting gypsies together. Not that their adventures had been harmless, precisely – the Phantom particularly remembered how Raoul had ended up decorated with smears originating from one of those filthy intruders' splattered brains, it always made him chuckle to think of it – yet he knew the chaos and horror of true battle.

Did he, now? How should he? Of course he had a vivid imagination, but he had never been on a battlefield before.

Except in a past life, perhaps… At once the images from his recurring nightmare became frighteningly clear before his inner eye.

No. He would not believe it. He would not believe any of it.

"Erik?"

The Phantom returned to reality with a start. "What?"

"Erik, please. I'm not too young to understand. I'm not a child anymore." There was a note of urgency in his voice, together with a flicker of fear. "And I need to know. What has been going on here? Where are my parents?"

Better the boy misinterpreted his silence than he found out about it all. It was bad enough already that he had not been able to hide his nightmares from Christine. "Fine," the Phantom said, "I'll tell you. If you don't do anything stupid, that is." As he sat down on the edge of his bed, Raoul followed his example without asking for leave, yet the Phantom was too lazy to truly teach him some manners. "At the moment, they're with Chateaupers."

"Why would they?" Raoul's face was screwed up with irritation.

Did he truly not know that? "Who was it that caught you? Did you know his name?"

"Maurice himself, and he picked me up behind the gate, practically." Raoul shrugged uncomfortably. "He didn't say much, except that my parents were on some kind of black list and had to fear for their lives when found. And when I asked him whether that was because of those stories about Republicans taking over the city, he merely grumbled that I had no idea. And then he sent us here."

"Easy enough to guess why he grumbled," the Phantom muttered. "He's a Republican himself."

"What? Not Maurice de Bracy?"

"Do you know any other Maurice?" The Phantom waved the question away impatiently. There was something else that demanded his attention. "You just said _us_. Who is _us_?"

"Just me and Roger. We were the last ones to get in, I think, before the siege ring closed behind us. I had no idea it was that serious. I mean, I heard about Sedan, which is bad enough, and I know about the siege of Metz yet unbroken, but Paris… I had no idea they had come that far."

Looking at the boy sideways, the Phantom noticed how thin his lips had gone as he stared at the stone floor, laid out with animal skins around the bed, fixedly. It must be a major stroke to him to realize how grave the situation really was. And he did not yet know half of it! "They probably let you in at all, without any closer inspection, _because_ you were the last. But say, is that Roger de Castelot-Barbezac you're talking about? The one too stupid to find his own behind with both hands?"

It was surprising to see how suddenly Raoul's features lightened up as he smiled. "Only when he's drunk. And then he needs a map." But then, slowly yet steadily, they shifted back to their serious expression once more. "We had orders to come back here, but my entire regiment was scattered on the way. Most of it was destroyed, I'm afraid. Then, when passing a village, we received word of the imminent siege, and we rode as hard as we could. We made it, but it was close. Roger was wounded in the course. Behind us, all gates closed." Raoul shuddered slightly. "Roger said it was better being inside than outside, but I'm not sure. From what I know, that Republican, Gambetta, is mustering in the west, but I have no idea how long it will take him to come here with an army."

"Maybe he won't come at all," the Phantom muttered darkly, observing the pattern the shadows from the hair on the animal skins, dancing with the candlelight, drew on the rough stone floor.

Raoul sat up straight, grasping his shoulder. "What d'you mean?"

"Those are evil times, kid." Shaking his hand off, the Phantom continued to watch the shadows. "You think the city is in Republican hands? You don't know half of it. It was, but they have lost it, though they are still fighting. It's the Communards who rule the city now."

"My God," Raoul whispered. "Then the worst rumours are true."

"I'm afraid they are. The death toll is mounting fast. People are dying out there with every passing day, women and children, too. There's war outside, but the city has turned on itself, destroying itself before the war from outside reaches it."

"My God," Raoul repeated, and the Phantom wrinkled his nose at it. Why did people always have to appeal to that God, that foolish illusion of a creator watching over them? Why were they so blind? Did they not know that Heaven was nothing but an empty sky?

_Ah, but you know Heaven_, a nasty little voice whispered inside his head. _You were once a prince of Paradise…_

"I'm no angel," the Phantom murmured stubbornly. "I'm no damn angel."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Raoul shot him a sideways glance. "I thought you – what's this? A _ponytail_?"

The Phantom sighed. Had the young fool really noticed it only now? "Do you think I want my hair hanging over my eyes?"

"A ponytail? _You?_"

"Yes, it's me, obviously. If you don't have anything more intelligent to say, then shut up."

"That you'd grow your hair that long at all… And you used to poke fun at me all the time when _I _still had long hair!"

"Because you looked like a sissy," the Phantom said coldly. "Now, if you want to hide with me, for hide you must, for your own damn sake, there are certain rules. First, you'll be given a certain contingent of words you're allowed to say in my presence. Let's make it hundred a day. Once you've used them up, you shut up for the rest of the day. Is that understood?"

Raoul snorted. "Is that what you call weird humour?"

With one quick thrust of his elbow, the Phantom sent him sprawling on the bed. "I'm serious. And I'll be counting, mind you. Plus you don't sleep in this bed here. I've still got my old coffin somewhere."

Lying back on the bed in just the position he had landed in, Raoul grinned up at him. "Are you going to bury me?"

"I wish."

For a moment they held each other's gaze, then, simultaneously, they both laughed. "As much as I hate to say it," the Phantom growled, trying hard to regain his most vindictive expression, "welcome home."

The only good thing about this was that he did not have to go looking for that silly fop now.

And Christine would be so happy once she found out…

"Thanks, old friend."

The Phantom suppressed a sigh. If he was not careful now, he might actually start _liking_ that idiot.

Sitting back up, Raoul straightened his dark blue jacket, though rather unenthusiastically. "So for the Opera House the season has begun as always?"

"It has begun, at least."

"And people are still coming?" Raoul looked doubtful.

"Distraction. Besides, the managers have been forced to go down a lot with the ticket prices, so everybody can afford it."

"And, do they? Has your audience changed?"

"Not exactly. The only result is that some who would have come from time to time anyway are coming more often now, if Firmin's surveys can be trusted. Those who can't afford it often would not come, anyway."

"Firmin's surveys?" Raoul sounded surprised. "He does surveys?"

"Of course he does. You know Firmin. If he can sell something well, he'll always wonder if there isn't a way to sell it even better." The Phantom tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear, secretly agreeing with Raoul that he needed a haircut. But now the boy had mentioned it, he certainly wouldn't have his hair cut for some time! "He says the prices are ruining us, though, but that's just what he says. I think we're doing fine."

Raoul sighed, passing a hand over his eyes. "I'm glad to hear it, but I'm still afraid this won't last."

"Do you really think I need _you_ to tell me so?" the Phantom growled.

"I suppose not," Raoul answered dryly. "Say, how about… our favourite little bar, you know?"

"_Your_ favourite little bar," the Phantom corrected him automatically. To Hell with it, they had had this discussion often enough!

"Whatever." Maybe the boy had grown up during those two months at war, but still he had the ability of simply laughing away what did not quite fit into his concept of the world. And as he laughed, his bright eyes sparkled. In Raoul's world, there was no eternal darkness, no shadow so deep it could not be touched by the rays of the sun.

Oh, the foolish boy. When would he ever learn?

And no, I do not want the sun. You see… starlight is so much better.

The Phantom almost smiled. Yes, a little starlight perhaps, just to make his night more beautiful.

The boy did not understand. But perhaps one day he would learn.

"Ah, I take it it's still open, then." Raoul practically beamed. "Listen, if there's any place to find out what's going on in the world outside, it's this."

"Yes, that's what Maurice says." Barely back home, and being a little idiot again? "He controls his web of spies from there. And what do _you_ do?"

Raoul flashed him a lopsided grin. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"Oh, shut it, kid, I'm not in the mood."

"Just good old Erik as we know and love him." Now the lad truly beamed. He must be pretending; nobody could really be so stupid. "Look, I brought you something."

"You –" Now what was _that_ about?

Reaching into his jacket packet, Raoul produced a small, paper-wrapped package. "Thought you might like it."

Frowning, the Phantom took it from him, aware that the boy was watching him while he unwrapped it. A small metal pendant on a thin leather cord fell into his hand, a silver gleam in the candlelight. An amulet in the shape of a skull.

"Thought of you when I saw it," Raoul explained. "Thought it might go with your seal and your sabre and all the sick little drawings lying around this place…" Snickering merrily, he dodged a half-hearted blow from the Phantom. "There you are, a morbid little present for the most morbid among my friends."

"You know," the Phantom said gently, in the soft, purring tone he employed when uttering a particularly nasty, but subtle threat, "the only thing that keeps me from planting your head on a spike above my bed is that Christine would be very upset about it."

Raoul nodded, grinning as if at a good joke. "I know."

"Fine. Then don't say that I didn't warn you." The Phantom tied the cord into a knot and stuffed the loose ends down his collar at the back of his neck, then made sure the pendant rested on his upper chest properly. The metal felt cool against his skin. "What do you say?"

"Well, what should I say? Just like I imagined it."

Looking down himself, the Phantom decided that a bit of metal in a slightly morbid shape on his bare chest suited him, but until Christine had had a look at it, the last word was not yet spoken.

"Right," said the boy. "I'm going out tonight, though not for long. And you're coming with me."

Raising his eyebrows at him, the Phantom shot him a scathing look. "Why me? Go alone."

"Oh, I expect you went to a certain place even while I was gone."

Yes, he had accompanied Maurice, but that was none of the lad's concern. "Let's say I've been sneaking around after dark in general. But that's not a good time to be out in the street."

"How good then that I've got you with me, eh?" The boy grinned smugly. "And if Christine doesn't turn up soon, I'll go looking for her. I haven't seen her for ages, and I don't want to wait any longer."

"You shouldn't be seen, kid," the Phantom reminded him, and as Raoul still got up from the edge of the bed and made move to pick up his sabre, he added, in a soft growl, "I mean it."

At least the boy was not as stupid as he had expected him to be, for when he saw his look, he hesitated, then apparently decided that patience was for his own best. Excellent. The Phantom hated being disobeyed.

"I only hope she comes soon," the boy sighed. "I missed her so."

So softly that it was not audible anymore, the Phantom echoed his sigh. Just like he was going to miss Christine's attention from now on, once she found out her fiancé was back…


	6. IV Every waking Moment

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:_

_Bea: Seems you handled your wits well enough. lol No, there is no icky hidden meaning in Raoul lazing around on the bed. pukes at the mere thought of E/R slash You'll have to wait a bit about that "certain place", but your curiosity will hopefully be satisfied in the chapter after this. And I don't mind whether you mess up my own quotes – after all, since they're my own, I'll recognize them easily enough. ;-)_

_The Musician of the Night: Wow, someone who is actually pleased with Raoul's sudden appearance:) A big "lol" for your random images! And we'll see who drinks and who doesn't…_

_TheQueenSarah__: You know, you just made my day with that loverlay review. ) Sorry about making you like Raoul and messing up your world in general. g You know, my best buddy and I actually founded the League of Raoul-Haters after seeing the movie for the first time, but by now… I'm afraid I'm growing fond of him. lol What you're stating about the change in his personality is exactly what I wanted people to notice, so I'm glad to get that feedback. And I'm glad you don't mind my squeezing in the occasional punch line. ;) And you impressed me with actually digging out that passage! Of course I had that in mind when wrote it, that and another one earlier on (Book 4 Chapter 2, to be exact). I won't say anything about the God thing yet, just wait and see. :) Yes, trying to get into people's head is the most important thing in my opinion. I always do it that way, and by now I can switch around pretty well. Let's call it practice. g No, I don't think the end will exactly kill you, it won't be _that_ bad… but we said no spoilers, right? ;P_

_Ashley: No, no Aeternus yet. But you won't have to wait long… ;) Ah, a defender of the ponytail already? lol I can assure you, nothing will happen to it for now. ;-)_

**IV. Every waking Moment**

Those were evil times, Madame Giry decided as she cleared away the dishes after dinner. Five at a small table, they had been rather crammed, but the young Vicomte de Chagny had needed to be fed, along with her girls, and she had never yet turned away a hungry Phantom. Well, he provided her with part of what she needed, to be exact, so he had every right to be fed at her table, but she would probably have fed him as well if he had been of no help to her at all. Just for old times' sake.

How well she remembered the boy he had once been, her mischievous little Erik. Times had changed, and he had changed as well, and very much so, but still her door was always open for him, whatever he had done in the meantime. When she had still been a girl, he had been like a younger brother to her, and her feelings had not changed much since, though she often thought of those times with regrets, of those days when he had not yet been so dark and brooding. When there had been no blood yet on his hands.

He had killed early already, she knew it now, but still, there had been a certain innocence about him then, compared to later on. Back in those days, he had not killed for satisfaction.

Whether this held true, she was not sure, though. It was just a suspicion she harboured. After all, she knew his cruelty and his lack of compassion for others, and that he valued a life for nothing. In the anarchy reigning on the streets at night, he hunted the Communards mercilessly.

And yet she was glad he did, for she felt that he kept her safe, her and her family.

Her family. Ever since her husband had died, shortly before Meg's birth, the girl had been all she had. And when later on Christine had come to live at the Opera House after she had lost her father, Madame Giry had included her in her motherly affection. Those two girls were what was most important to her in the world.

Yes, and her little Erik. He had practically been part of the family, too.

She was not sure about grown-up Erik, though. Often enough, he made her uneasy at the very least. In his wrath a snarling, bright-eyed demon, he could become a purring kitten very suddenly, though he rather reminded her of a predator cub when he did. And his eyes, though they still showed a mischievous sparkle at times, never truly became a cub's. They always were a grown predator's stalking his prey.

And there were those times when he would eye her with unconcealed longing, circling her with a greedy gaze, and his low, gentle purrs, more like growls, brought a sensation back to her she had not experienced since before she had lost her husband. It was a highly unusual way of being courted, yet she might even have enjoyed it a little, maybe, if she had not found out soon enough that he tried just the same with her own daughter.

The _beast_.

Replacing the teapot on its usual place on the shelf, Meg then wiped her hands on her apron before she discarded it. As she met her mother's gaze, she smiled. "They are so sweet together, don't you think?"

"Who?" Madame Giry asked absent-mindedly, automatically checking if Meg had put everything in the correct place.

"Raoul and Erik."

Madame Giry frowned. "I rather think Erik is a little nasty with the poor vicomte."

"But it's obvious he doesn't mean it," Meg insisted. "He'd never admit it, but he likes him."

"Of course he does." Meg was completely right, it was obvious. "He is just being foolish because he is jealous."

"Poor dear," Meg said sympathetically. "He loves Christine so much."

Madame Giry nodded wordlessly. Indeed she pitied him for his unhappy love. And she pitied Christine, for whom it must be so hard, being loved passionately by two men and having to reject one of them, breaking his heart. Madame Giry knew that it hurt her to hurt the Phantom, and the girl showed him affection whenever she could, kind-hearted as she was, yet she could never give him what he wished for.

"You know," Meg began, "if I could just get Erik to take me out –"

"_Meg_," Madame Giry interjected warningly. That her daughter was rather taken with the Phantom was obvious enough, and she watched with suspicion when Meg climbed his lap to tousle his hair and call him all kinds of funny nicknames. The only reason that she let her daughter sleep down in the cellars was that she would not like the idea of Christine being alone with the Phantom at night, and Christine was there because as the bride of the son of a hunted man like Vincent de Chagny, she might well be in grave danger. With both girls there, the Phantom would not do anything he shouldn't.

At least she hoped so.

And besides, she wouldn't put anything past those Communards, and if they broke into the girls' dormitories at night, her two would always be safe.

"Oh, come on," Meg complained. "Why can't I have a bit of fun? Besides, I saw you snuggling him yesterday."

Madame Giry threw her a stern look. "Sometimes he needs to feel loved," she said curtly, and in a tone that indicated that there would be no further discussion of this topic, and serious trouble if her daughter brought it up again.

Mumbling something to herself, Meg let her lips form a little pout.

Madame Giry did not mind her. Meg usually pouted when she was told off, especially if her mother told her that she could not just roll around on the floor with the Phantom or similar. Heavens above, who could tell what they might be doing if not for Madame Giry's occasional intervening? Not that Meg was an indecent girl, but she seemed to think that there were other rules for things she did with the Phantom. Like allowing him to be in her room when she was in her underwear, reasoning that she had seen him in his underwear just as well, which was an improper thing in itself, or snuggling him in a dark corridor, or kissing him on the rooftop endlessly…

"The difference is," she pointed out, "that Erik is like a younger brother to me." Most of the time, at least. "Whereas for you –"

"He's my friend!" Meg interrupted, indignantly. "And I see a brother in him, too. It's not as if we were lovers or something. There's nothing wrong with cuddling him."

Madame Giry sighed. "I only get the feeling that he might become your lover if I don't keep my eyes open."

"We're doing nothing wrong!"

"If you do, I'll box your ears something dreadfully," Madame Giry stated dryly. "Both your ears."

"I really can't see what you're always worrying about."

"I hope there is no reason." She threw the girl a strict look which said clearly enough that woe betide her if there was. Her and the Phantom, of course.

Yet still, she was glad that those two were so attached to each other, because this way she could be certain that the Phantom was there to protect her little Meg every waking moment of his life. And somebody he took such good care of would not be harmed. In times like these, knowing this was a blessing.

In times like these, her Erik's mere existence was a blessing.

She only hoped that there would be no need for him to prove how well he watched over them unceasingly, how well he protected them all.


	7. V Laugh in your Loneliness

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Not as fast as I used to be, I know. But I didn't have _The Phantom Holiday Special_ to work on while I was writing _The King of the Catacombs_. Anyway, the more reviews I get, the more you spur me on… (hint, hint…) ;-)_

_The Musician of the Night: I think he wouldn't say no to that… ;)_

_TheQueenSarah__: No, not pathetic. :) There'll be plenty of OCs around, so it may not be too easy to guess. As for the possible Erik/Mme Giry pairing, it actually appears on the list of pairings to play with. g That she rejects him does not mean she would not be interested. And yes, you've seen me right through as far as the closing passage is concerned: Your assumption is absolutely correct._

_Bea: I just couldn't resist bringing in the purr – after all, he does it so often in the _Holiday Special_… Jealous? She would fiercely deny that… but there's a grain of truth in it._

_Nugrey__: You definitely see it coming. ;) If I may say so, danger will truly not come from outside alone…_

_Kodu__: Pleased to hear that. Oh, and about the "joke": Seeing it from this perspective made me snicker, too. g Strange, how could I miss that?_

_Ashley: I know you love evil twisted drama. When writing this, I actually thought you'd certainly appreciate it… ;-)_

**V. Laugh in your Loneliness**

Actually, Raoul de Chagny was not a fool. He knew that the Phantom liked to think of him as one, but he knew equally well that he did not truly consider him one. It was only that the Phantom just could not admit he saw anything positive in his rival for Christine's love.

Winning the Phantom's respect had been hard, and still Raoul frequently had the feeling that it was not exactly much respect he had won himself, but then again, he could understand more or less. After all, what would _he_ feel like if Christine chose another man over him?

And sometimes, even though he and his fiancée had actually wanted to marry in July already, he still felt she might. Sometimes he feared that she would decide to share the Phantom's darkness, after all. And he knew that if this was what her heart told her, then he would let her go, even if it broke his own.

Just what the Phantom had done on that night when Raoul had dreaded that he would either die or never see her again. It was proof enough of how deeply her dark angel loved her.

And it gave Raoul a feeling of guilt, even though he kept telling himself that he had every right to marry Christine, no matter if it forced the Phantom to remain lonely or not.

Which was why he was here, more or less. Why they both were here.

Sitting at a small table in a dark corner, just as the Phantom preferred it, each with a glass of wine before him, they watched the girls dancing in the cleared space in the middle of the room. They certainly were pretty, those girls, and they certainly weren't exactly decently dressed, but they also weren't in a crude state of undress. This was not a bad place, after all. This was the Maxim.

Of course, this place had seen better times, and also better patrons. Since the Communards controlled the city, some attended the bar who would not have been there otherwise; usually it was a place reserved to noblemen, wealthy foreigners and better bourgeoisie. Now there were a handful of men not exactly to be trusted.

To be exact, this included the man coming towards them, judging from his appearance. He was tall and dark-haired, and his hair fell down to his shoulders in an untidy mane. His thin moustache and narrow line of a goatee were neatly trimmed, though, and his dark clothing would not have stood out in a crowd, except for his rough black leather coat, perhaps, and the hat he carried under his arm. And on his shoulder perched a slender white furry creature with a few small, light brown dots, twitching its whiskers at all the smells around it: a pet ferret by the name of Madame Blanche, as Raoul knew. No, Maurice de Bracy did not look like the nobleman he was. And he also did not do a nobleman's work: He was a police officer, an important man in Gérard de Chateaupers's Criminal Police.

"Gentlemen." He greeted them with a brief nod. "Mind if I join you?"

"Feel free," Raoul replied. After all, Maurice was an old friend.

In Maurice's wake came three lovely girls, two dark, one blonde, who immediately crowded around them. While one of the dark-haired girls began massaging his shoulders as soon as he sat, the other two exchanged a glance and then approached the Phantom, who followed their every movement with his eyes. They did not heed Raoul much, and he was glad they didn't. After all, he was engaged. The girls knew he was, and they had ceased trying to seduce him at last, when they had realized it was pointless.

"Ah, Erik. Back in action?"

"I was never gone, Maurice."

"No, I expect you weren't." Maurice had a peculiar way of smiling; he always pressed his lips together when he did, which made the corners of his mouth go down a little. For Raoul's taste, it was more a grimace than a friendly expression, but Maurice was not a man to look friendly, and even in his politest moments there was a certain gruffness about him. "There was trouble on my beat last night."

The Phantom raised his one visible eyebrow. "Really? I did not realize you take any beat yourself, just like a common policeman." The fair-haired girl stroked his unmasked cheek with the tip of her forefinger, and he gave a little growl of pleasure in response.

"Sometimes I do." Maurice's expression did not change. "In times like these, I trust myself rather than common policemen. At least those not belonging to my department. Yes, Lilie, keep him busy." The fair-haired young girl winked at him, and her well-tailored green dress rustled as she leaned down over the Phantom to tickle him under the chin. "And I found a severed head in the gutter."

"Not my fault," the Phantom growled, throwing back his head so Lilie could trace his jaw line better with her finger.

A _severed head_? In the _street_? Good God! But of course, the Phantom was not disturbed in the least by the mention of such things.

"And there was yet another murder committed on the same street tonight." Maurice spoke calmly, quite emotionlessly. "A man, around forty. His neck was broken, and we found fine threads on it, like of a rope, as well as some bruises probably caused by the aforementioned rope tightened suddenly. What really killed him, though, was not the tightening in itself, but a hard blow to his back, right between his shoulder blades, which must have thrown him into the noose, if you get my meaning. From the print on his jacket, we assume that he was kicked into it – I think the murderer in question held onto the rope with both hands and pulled it towards him hard while he delivered that kick. Does that story sound familiar?"

While Raoul held his breath, a tiny smirk played around the Phantom's lips briefly. "Oh, I think you've got me there."

Maurice nodded quietly; he must have expected that answer, and it did not unsettle him in the least, while the second girl who had approached the Phantom to caress him withdrew her hand hastily. Lilie's fingers froze somewhere along the side of his jaw. "There's only one more thing I need to know, then: Why?"

"Because he was walking down the street carrying a severed head. And upon closer inspection, he turned out to be a Communard."

"I see." Maurice pulled a slim notebook and a pencil from an inside pocket of his dark coat and made a short note, then snapped it closed again. "And why was the head found somewhere else, then?"

"Because he dropped it when he fled."

"That makes sense. Stay away from my notebook, Suzette." The girl's full lips formed a pretty little pout, but she did as she was told, then smiled at Raoul and showed rather more cleavage than it was proper. Raoul quickly turned his head away, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks.

"What a _beast_," Lilie purred. Obviously she had overcome her momentary shock, for she was busy tickling the Phantom beneath the chin once more, while her dark-haired companion was tugging at his cravat, cooing over him softly.

It's the mask, Raoul thought. The mask makes him mysterious. The mask magically draws those girls… He only hoped they would not try to take it away from him; after all, he knew the Phantom's nasty temper.

"Beast indeed," Suzette agreed, picking up Maurice's hat and putting it on. "A beast wearing clothes."

"Oh, we could certainly do without those clothes," giggled the last, and the other two joined in, snickering softly.

Raoul hoped he was not blushing too much. Not that he normally felt embarrassed when he heard such talk, but to hear such things from women… Yet the Phantom merely smirked; he actually seemed to appreciate it. What an indecency. "I thought you were against Erik doing such things," Raoul said to start a less awkward topic, keeping his eyes strictly on Maurice and ignoring the shadows playing seductively around Suzette's ample cleavage framed with scarlet silk as best as he could, as well as the glances they exchanged and their soft laughter.

Maurice shrugged. "All I want is the streets to be safe. Yet in times like these, they aren't, not even during the day. Because of the Communards." The word sounded like an obscene insult when he used it. "So one more of them dead is a good thing, in my opinion."

"Well spoken," Suzette agreed. "Some of our patrons these days…"

"Horrible," Lilie agreed. "Absolutely no manners. No idea how to behave to a lady."

Raoul almost pointed out that those three were no ladies at all, but luckily he bit his tongue just in time. Perhaps being honest and outspoken all the time was not such a good idea…

The ferret slipped off Maurice's shoulder, then climbed down onto the table where it sniffled around a bit. Suddenly it seemed a lot larger than it appeared when it crouched on Maurice's shoulder. Then it curled up close to its owner's hand, its small black eyes glittering as it watched its surroundings.

"Those are rough times, Erik. Kill or be killed, as good as." Shaking a long strand of hair out of his face, Maurice used the opportunity to point towards one of the small round tables at the other end of the room with his chin. "See that man, the one with the black hair, sitting there all alone? Now a woman comes towards him." But he did not wait for the Phantom's positive reply; he continued straight away and out of the corner of his mouth. "His name is Charles LaCroix. You need to remember him, because he's a dangerous man."

The Phantom's eyes narrowed as he watched the man Maurice had indicated. Raoul followed his gaze, pretending to stretch comfortably, and shot him a quick glance. The man was pale and indeed black-haired, his hair parted at the left side and flecked with grey, and his features were hard, a permanent frown lingering on them, as it seemed, drawing two deep lines into the skin between his nose and each corner of his eye. Just like Raoul, he was in the usual kind of evening dress, with black jacket, white cravat and cream-coloured, almost white waistcoat. His age might lie somewhere between fifty and sixty, but he might also be younger, Raoul was not quite sure about his estimation. Certainly a grim fellow, but not a particularly dangerous-looking man. Yet if Maurice said so… Maurice must know. Maurice always knew.

"You want me to kill him?" the Phantom asked quietly, so softly that it was almost drowned out by the music of a pair of flutes from the background.

"No." Maurice waved it away by a lazy gesture of his long-fingered hand. "At least, not yet. I just want you to remember him. He works for Michel Delannay, Head of the Commune Council."

The Phantom nodded grimly, his eyes still on LaCroix, and they had acquired an expression Raoul knew only too well: They seemed to have turned to gleaming blue ice. "I will remember him, trust me." And Raoul had no doubt he would.

Heavens, what times were these where a high-ranking police officer practically gave the Phantom permission to murder?

The girls had been paying close attention as well, though one was busy with Maurice's hair and two with the Phantom's. An onlooker at one of the other tables might think that they were common courtesans, and that therefore the men's discussion was of no importance, but Raoul happened to know about those three. They were Maurice's agents, all of them, his faithful spies in the better underworld of Paris, watching those who were suspicious-seeming and rich enough to afford a courtesan instead of a common whore from the street.

"Ladies," Maurice said, patting Suzette's hand, "I want you to keep an eye open for LaCroix. Especially for who keeps him company. Leyla, I think that's a job for you."

The last of the three, slim, dark-haired and pretty with large dark eyes, raised her head, averting her attention from the Phantom for a moment, her full lips forming a sulk that made Raoul want to kiss her – a notion for which he pinched his own thigh hard under the table to banish the idea. "I know what you mean, but I'd rather stay with sweet Erik here."

"For everything you do, I'll pay you double of what he pays you."

Fair-haired Lilie laughed, a sound like pearls clicking together. "A gracious offer, Leyla! You should consider it."

"And my sole attention for some time afterwards." Maurice's expression did not change, yet his eyes acquired a sparkle Raoul was altogether suspicious of. He knew of Maurice's liaison with those girls. With all three of them.

Leyla bowed her head gracefully, twirling the end of her gold-stitched blue shawl between the slim fingers of one hand. "We shall see…"

"Good." For the first time this evening, Maurice smiled in a less grim and peculiar way.

Downing the rest of the contents of his glass, Raoul re-filled it from the jug on the table. There was a warm, tingly feeling spreading in his insides, which meant he was getting drunk, but for once he did not care. If he could forget those new truths he had learned during the day, and if only for one short night, then he was happy to, and good riddance. His parents hunted and probably sentenced to death, their estates confiscated, him and his young fiancée in mortal danger, the Opéra Populaire on the brink of ruin, perhaps, at one word of those who ruled the city now, and not to forget the enemy army outside, surrounding the city and waiting, waiting like a vulture waited for his prey to die. Coming home from war, attached to a cavalry regiment in a desperate attempt to win more soldiers, as there was no use for sailors this time, he found that war had visited his home before him, and that war was casting its shadow over it.

War was like… a creature. A crouching predator, ready to pounce suddenly and destroy all he knew and loved. And nobody could tell when it would strike…

Shivering inwardly, he filled his glass once more. He had hardly noticed it was empty already.

Lord in Heavens, Christine! He was endangering her by his mere existence, and yet she was the dearest thing to him on earth. Maybe it was better if she stayed with Erik, for her fiancé was a prey of war, frozen to immobility by the predator's fiery eyes. Erik would love her and cherish her when war had sated its insatiable hunger on himself.

Dimly, he heard Maurice call for more wine. His senses were heavy with grief and alcohol.

And still there was laughter here, and still pretty girls were dancing, their bare arms flashes of bright pink in the twilight…

Life goes on, even if in the shadows.

The Phantom was watching him, and his eyes glittered. Poking around in my head, are you? But what did it matter? What did it really matter, when all was said and done?

What did anything matter?

"There is no justice in this world," Maurice said softly, drawing Suzette onto his lap. "There is just us, and what we try to do to restore it."

"There is no justice." The Phantom's usually so melodious voice was a throaty growl. He was balancing a girl on each of his knees, yet his eyes were on those dancing in the clear space between the tables, now hiding LaCroix from view.

"No justice," Raoul muttered, thinking of his planned wedding. If not for that accursed war, he and Christine would have been husband and wife already! And he doubted there would be any chance for him to get married any time soon, not with the Communards at large in the city.

He emptied yet another glass. The wine was not bad here, even in times like these. Closing his eyes, he savoured the taste, along with the slight dizziness that was already taking him. That bloody alcohol. It was certainly doing him no good.

No justice, no bloody justice. At once Raoul was not quite sure anymore about the correct meaning of those words.

But what did it matter? They all died in the end, didn't they? Some sooner and some later, but the time came when all went to Hell.

Strange, but somehow the prospect made him feel oddly light-headed, and he could have laughed out loud at the idea.

He realized that the Phantom was watching something fixedly, and then he saw that the dance was over, and that the next number was one single girl. A singing girl. Hmm, and she was pretty. Maybe a little kiss wouldn't hurt? No, he was not supposed to. Shame, really. But at least she had a pleasant voice.

Snatching the jug, he refilled his glass before everybody else could drink it all. Wine went away so quickly, bloody thing; one moment it sparkled like dark blood in your glass, the next it was gone.

Blood. No more blood. He was sick of it.

He returned his attention to the singing girl, who was a more pleasant object to study. And she had nice curves, too. Shame about the kissing, really. And about the fondling, too.

The song ended and the patrons applauded, and the Phantom silently slipped out of his chair and mingled with the crowd milling about between the tables, leaving the two girls to look after his retreating form. For some reason, this made Raoul snicker. "Well, he can be a bit single-minded at times…"

Maurice's lips twisted into a lopsided grin, and he barely looked up from the activity he was busy with: feeding his ferret a lump of sugar over Suzette, who was sprawled comfortably on his lap. "Let him play, ladies."

"She's nothing for him," Lilie stated. "She won't take him to bed. She's a _decent_ girl, you see." The way she said it, it almost sounded like a bad thing.

Maurice shrugged, momentarily unsettling Suzette slightly, who swatted him around the head playfully in protest. "Yes, but I don't think that's what he's after, precisely. He hasn't taken anyone to bed yet, as far as I know." And he threw the two at the other side of the table a questioning look.

"Not yet, no," Leyla answered, interpreting the look correctly.

"We would know otherwise," Suzette supplied.

"Though that doesn't mean we weren't trying." Lilie sighed. "As long as we merely fondle him, he won't say no, but there are certain regions where he won't let us go."

"And he won't be parted with his trousers," Suzette said regretfully.

"We managed to get him out of the rest once, though." There was something close to pride in Lilie's voice.

"And he somehow managed to keep all of us busy," Leyla recounted, smiling at the memory.

Raoul found only one reaction to a story like this: he snickered. So the Phantom was starting to make his experiences with women? Perfect. Maybe he would stay away from Christine now.

Actually, this was the reason why Raoul had taken him here in the first place: So the Phantom could find himself a girl or two to have fun and a loose affair with and forget about Christine for a little. And until now all was going well, as it seemed, though not quite as fast as he had hoped. But since those girls apparently went after him themselves, and without asking for payment as it seemed, things were really going well.

Ah, what a lovely old world.

He was truly getting drunk, he thought as he snickered to himself again. But what did it matter? In the end, they all died, every single one of them… they all died in war's looming shadow…

He filled his glass once more.


	8. VI Guide and Guardian

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Funny how you all find that singing girl interesting… g_

_TheQueenSarah__: Yes, I understand what you mean, and you're absolutely right. If you want to make a character seem dark and mysterious, write from another character's point of view. But this was not what I had in mind mainly, it was just to give Raoul a chapter of his own, so to say, and one where I could show the changes he's undergone. Oh dear, I'm really fearing for my OCs now… lol As for your speculation, I won't say anything yet. As for the Phantom's character depth, this is why he's my favourite non-original character ever to write. The darkness in a character gives it such potential, and it makes him so much more interesting than your common "good guy". I'm no stranger to pain and hatred of the whole world, true enough, though I've never yet wasted away with a doomed love. That does not mean I have never yet been in love, though. ;)_

_Bea: I hoped it would cheer you up a bit before the show, together with those pics I sent you. I hope you didn't miss any overly important points, because there were two in it you shouldn't miss. ;) As for Raoul's drunkenness, I was indeed just imagining what it must be like, you know me (and my dislike for alcohol), after all. Sorry, we can't have Erik's perspective all the time, though I also prefer his point of view to Raoul's. :) No, he won't just take a courtesan. That's not good enough for him. He's a bit more complicated than that. And it offers me the chance of letting you all venture wild guesses… ;-P_

_The Musician of the Night: You have an un-foolish Raoul, too, so you know what you're talking about. (Ought to check your story again one of these days. Those first four chapters were rather promising.) I have no idea where those lyrics you quote are taken from, either, so I won't be of much help to you._

_Ashley: Somehow people keep hating me. lol Does that mean your mother saw you were reading about a severed head? g She must think I have a bad influence on you… ;) You throw stale brownies? Ah, the finer points of aggressive bakery… (Do you read Terry Pratchett? He has battle bread and drop scones… g)_

_Alisendre__: You're back! squeak Let me guess, you've been taming Hun(k)s all the time, right? gg Can't resist a bit of darkness. I always like darkness in my stories, don't I? (The _Holiday Special_ is a bit of an exception, though…) Better than KotC? I don't know. KotC is the original, after all, and you can't beat the original, that's just a rule. (Oh well, my sister keeps insisting the second _Tomb Raider_ movie is better than the first, but that's just because ickle darling Gerry is in it, I bet. lol) Well, we'll have more (and rougher) combat action certainly, and more change of scenery, and more characters, and more flashbacks and fantasy elements in general, but I'm afraid that won't do the trick all by itself… Right, we'll see. :)_

**VI. Guide and Guardian**

Christine found that she was not quite sure about the Phantom. But then, this was nothing new. She never was. He just did not fit into any category she could possibly imagine. He was so… different.

For some reason, it was easier for Meg. Meg seemed to know exactly what she was doing, and when Christine had asked her, she had answered without hesitation that he was like a brother to her, though there were those other moments at times, the moments when there was a draw about him a brother was not supposed to have. Meg knew her feelings, and she had no problems with them, as it seemed.

A brother. If it were that easy…

Yes, at times he was a brother, a loving elder brother who took care of her, who shared her laughter and tears, a friend and guardian. But there was something else, too, every time. Of course, she had fooled around with him just like Meg did, but there was something between them not quite allowing her just to be silly with him. There was something serious, too, all the time. Something so much deeper.

Christine sighed. She could throw a pillow at his head all she liked, but still it was not the same as between him and Meg.

Meg looked up from the book she had been flicking through. "Bedtime?"

Christine nodded. "Probably. I only hope Raoul and Erik are back already."

"I guess so. After all, Raoul will be quite eager to see you for a little longer."

Christine agreed, smiling. She, too, was eager to see her fiancé again. For some reason he had had to go on this excursion of his, but hopefully he was back now.

Bidding goodnight to Madame Giry, whose living room they had been occupying, they went down, all the long way to the cellars. By now they knew several ways to get to the Phantom's lair, including some where it was better to have a boat, but still it was a long way, Christine thought, and a dark way. She did not like the last part, where they had to go through complete darkness carrying a torch. Not that darkness exactly scared her, but she did not like it much. And all the things that might hide in the dark, where she could not see them… She felt better in the light. Once the gentle glow of many candles enveloped them, she breathed easier.

"They're back," Meg noticed. "Or at least Erik's cloak is."

Indeed, the Phantom's black cloak lay in a corner, half over a table. Christine shook her head. Why did he always have to throw it somewhere, instead of putting it away properly?

"And Raoul's jacket," Meg added, pointing.

Following her outstretched hand with her eyes, Christine saw it lying crumpled on the stairs to the bedroom. Sighing, she picked it up as she climbed the steps, while Meg deposited the torch in a rusty metal rack on the wall, obviously made for that purpose. She liked carrying torches, Christine knew. After all, her best friend was a real adventurer.

Entering the only dimly lit bedroom, and automatically stepping over clothes strewn on the floor, she immediately saw both of them – and she had to bite her bottom lip not to laugh. They were fast asleep, Raoul stretched out on his back, his white shirt half unbuttoned and completely crumpled, while the Phantom, not wearing a shirt, but, for some peculiar reason, his waistcoat, lay half on his side, one arm wrapped around Raoul's middle possessively, the other beneath Raoul's neck, and Raoul was huddled against him comfortably.

As silently as possible, Christine edged back to the doorway, gesturing for Meg to join her. "Come quickly," she whispered. "You really need to see this."

Already in her nightshirt, Meg hurried up the stairs and immediately had to stifle a giggle as she saw the two in the bed.

"Sweet, aren't they?"

"Almost certainly drunk," Meg stated. "Both of them."

Christine found that her friend was probably right. There was no other state in which the Phantom would put an arm around her fiancé, not even to please her.

She only hoped they had not been drinking too much.

"Well," Meg suggested merrily as Christine changed into her own nightshirt, "let's squeeze in, shall we?"

"Do you really think we're all going to fit into this bed?" Until now, Christine had not thought about this problem. "Is there room enough?"

Meg shrugged. "I guess so."

"But we'll be rather tight-packed."

Meg giggled. "This is improper. I like it."

"Meg! Really!" Honestly, what was her friend thinking about again? Of course, it really was not exactly proper sleeping in the same bed with a man, and even more with two men, but all the same, no reason to come up with any improper ideas.

Oh well… actually there were quite enough reasons, but Christine quickly banished those thoughts from her mind.

What would Madame Giry say to this? Did she think the Phantom slept in this horrible coffin of his? And had she yet spent any thought on where to place Raoul?

Climbing into the bed, Meg wrapped a woolly blanket around herself, then gave Raoul a gentle nudge. "Hello, sleeping beauty," she purred into his ear. "You're taking up too much space…"

Raoul grunted something completely unintelligible, except for Christine's name, and huddled closer against the Phantom.

"You know," Meg said, clearly amused, "this is a little weird."

Christine smiled. "I rather suspect he thinks Erik is me."

"Oh. He must be pretty drunk, then."

"The same goes for Erik, I'd say, only the other way round." Squatting down beside the bed, Christine gave the Phantom a little poke in the ribs. "Am I correct, Erik?" Strange that he had not woken until now; normally he woke from the softest sound. He was a good guardian, always wary. Yes, Meg must be right, they most certainly _were_ drunk.

There was a growl from the Phantom as he rolled over onto his back, and soon he blinked into the light like a night owl. It took a moment more for him to realize that one of his arms still was around Raoul, but when he did, he snarled immediately. "Out of my bed, kid!"

Raoul did not quite obey, but almost automatically moved over to the other side of the bed, where he curled up once again, grumbling something unintelligible, accompanied by Meg's merry giggles.

The Phantom's eyes remained focused on Christine, filled with a greedy longing he could not quite conceal. And even when she went to join Raoul, she knew, his eyes always followed her. She could feel his desire, too, always at the edge of his awareness, a hunger that could not be sated. And how should it, when it was for her he hungered, for her and no one else?

His dreams must have been filled with his unfulfilled longing again. Poor Erik. He could not have her, and now he would have to share her with Raoul once more.

But on the other hand, she was so happy her fiancé had come back safely; she would not exchange his presence for anything else in the world. When Raoul was there, nothing else mattered, not even Erik. Well, no, of course he was still dear to her heart, but all she longed for now was to hold Raoul tight and never let him go again. Walking around the bed, she slipped in at the other side and snaked an arm around Raoul's waist, while Meg, grinning broadly, took up the place between the two men. It was not that Christine had not played with the idea of huddling in between them, but what she had seen in the Phantom's eyes again just now…

What scared her about it was not that he wanted her; she was aware of that and had practically gotten used to it. It rather was that there were moments when she would return that longing. At times she would find herself yearning for the Phantom's touch, hungry for his gentle caresses and passionate kisses, and the memory of being engaged was hardly sufficient to keep her from doing what she shouldn't. God have mercy on her, but it just felt so… _right_…

Of course, part of the blame was to go to that extraordinary mental connection between them, certainly, but not all of it. She had already experienced that same feeling when the Phantom had blocked her out, or when she tried to block him out in return. Maybe it was because they shared those strange mental intimacies so regularly, whenever he taught her to find a thought or analyze a sentiment in his head. But no, she had felt drawn to him before that.

Resting her head on Raoul's shoulder, and smiling briefly when her fiancé gave a little grunt and slipped an arm around her in turn, Christine had to admit to herself that the Phantom could not be blamed as much as she would have liked to blame him for his own dark fascination.

Why couldn't he simply be her Angel of Music once again, her guide and guardian?

At least she was ready now to face her feelings, even though she was not quite sure about her feelings sometimes. There was one thing she could be certain of, though: If not for Raoul, it would have been Erik. And he knew just as well as she did.

And all the same, he had not hurt Raoul yet. Slowly but steadily, they were developing a peculiar kind of friendship, against all odds. Because they both loved her. Because they loved her enough to overcome their hatred towards each other for her sake. For this love, the Phantom had taken Raoul in and would let him stay, despite his threats and muttered curses. For this love, Raoul had taken out his strange friend tonight instead of spending all his time with his fiancée. Christine did not quite know what they did when they went out together, only that it seemed to do the Phantom some good.

One day she would ask more closely. But for now, it did not matter; she was too tired.

And so was Raoul, probably. Besides, there was a definite hint of wine in the scent of his skin, a hint she caught even without sniffing the side of his neck, as she liked to do sometimes.

It was something she had learned from the Phantom, she thought, feeling the blood rise to her cheeks. God, the sensation of his warm breath on the back of her neck…

Why did they always have to drink? She did not like it much, though especially the Phantom could be extremely entertaining in this state. Thinking of how he had spent an entire evening pretending he was Carlotta, Christine had to stifle a giggle. That had been the week before that memorable night when he had, under the influence of a little too much wine, come up with the idea that partying all night with a bunch of pretty girls was a nice thing to do.

How the Poussepain sisters had squealed when he had first slipped into their room!

Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the feeling of Raoul's warmth, listening to his calm breathing beside her. Still she could hardly believe that he was back. She had imagined his homecoming with desperate hope so many times, but now he truly was there… There was a marvellous soaring feeling in the pit of her stomach, and a kind of mirth that made her want to hop up and down on the bed and laugh for no reason at all, except that she was happy, but also a different kind, a quiet joy which filled her with just a calm feeling of happiness, and with the wish to simply lie beside Raoul and savour the wonderful knowledge that he was there.

From Raoul's other side, she heard Meg murmur something and then the Phantom's low chuckle. Hopefully they weren't going to start one of their pillow battles now; there wasn't too much room in the bed as it was already.

Yes, Meg had been right earlier on, this was a highly improper thing probably, sharing a bed with not only one, but two men even. But it was cosy, lying huddled against Raoul and knowing that her two best friends were very near. And she felt safe with them, even though there was war outside, tearing the world as she knew it apart. Down here, far away from what happened under the light, there was no war. There was just her and Raoul and Meg, and Erik, her faithful guardian. There was nothing to be afraid of.

And at once she felt that she liked the darkness more than she would have thought.


	9. VII Promise me

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Seems you all liked the two sleeping beauties g – and thanks for NOT reading any weird slash implications into it. I knew I had intelligent readers. ;)_

_The Next Christine: Now, now, I wouldn't consider myself an artist. I'm just a slightly morbid lad who needs to do something beside his law studies. Anyway, I can't yet tell you what Erik is going to do, I can't give out too many spoilers, after all. Yet Christine is his top preference; he'll rather have her than anybody else. It seems he might not get the chance, though, so he has started wondering… Feel free to e-mail me if you want to get to know me any closer, I answer every mail._

_Nugrey__: Yes, I like the ferret, too. I just wanted to make Maurice eccentric, and this is what I came up with. :) You're completely right about the perspective, of course, thanks for the tip._

_Alisendre__: You had coke in your nose? That once happened to me with lemonade, it was a bit embarrassing. lol My sister got a whole mushroom into her nose once because of a laughing fit, she beats all records. ;-) Yes, I'll make your favourite little Ghostie happy. Soon enough. ;)_

_The Musician of the Night: Yes, it's the swan bed, otherwise there wouldn't be any chance of squeezing in four characters at once. ;)_

_TheQueenSarah__: You picked out the contrast I used precisely – the gentle glow of candles is opposed to the dark, yet all the same the cellars count as darkness – I have the imagery "pre-mirror" Christine's emotions. You see, I actually do some thinking while I write. lol I'm a cheese sandwich? Uh-oh, my mother might eat me now… g I don't know about "teh", except that I learned all about "teh hawtness" on PPN. ;) Sorry to continually mess up your life, but I just can't resist. ;-)_

_Bea: Elf-Squee, eh? lol Yes, I know, I'm being pretty cruel, no Meg POV yet and you're so eagerly waiting for it… There will be Meg chapters in the future, of course, though not until Book Four at the earliest, I'm afraid. I'm expanding Erik at Meg's cost, so to say._

_Ashley: For the _Holiday Special_, I let myself be inspired by Terry Pratchett. Only that he is a lot better than me. Give him a try if you like humorous fantasy stories._

…

…

…

**VII. Promise me**

Sitting at his organ as so often, the Phantom was busy working on his new opera. He was making good progress, in his own opinion, though he was not quite content with several aspects yet. However, there was time enough to change them until the new year, when he would have to be finished with it at the latest.

And time enough to work on his Requiem, too.

Putting his quill down, he read through what he had just been orchestrating, frowned and tried a few chords on the organ. Not that he needed it to hear what they sounded like – the music was there in his head, and he heard it as he wrote it – but he just liked to try out what he had written. Then he added a few notes in the flutes and crossed out another few in the clarinets. Much better. Orchestrating passages was quite a simple thing really, and rather uncreative compared to composing the actual melodies, yet at least he never had to rake his hands through his hair wondering what he should write next. Once he had the melodies, everything else was easy.

But that did not mean that the melodies did not come to him easily, too. Just not as easily as orchestrating was.

There were others who could not even do _that_, though. And Reyer said his orchestrations were among the finest he had ever seen, and that was saying something. After all, Maestro Reyer had been the Opéra Populaire's conductor for many years now, and many an opera had been performed under his skilled instruction and guidance. He knew what he was talking about.

Over at the table with the stage model, Raoul was thoughtlessly toying with some of the little figures the Phantom had made to fill it. At first the Phantom had been reluctant to let the boy touch anything, but since he had been here for over a week now and not yet broken anything, the Phantom had let him have the cardboard box with all the rest of the figures, too. There were so many, accumulated during all those long years he had spent living down here, and the box was hardly large enough to contain all the old ones anymore. Christine and Meg had been fascinated when he had shown them his collection, and so was Raoul, apparently. Yet there were two little dolls the boy would not find among the rest, two the Phantom had removed before letting the boy play with them: one of Christine and one of himself, both in their costumes for _Don Juan_. They were in the breast pocket of his robe now.

"How's it going?" Raoul asked casually after some time. Clearly he was bored, and clearly he was too lazy to get up and find something else to do.

"Fine, until you asked," the Phantom muttered, scribbling an alternate version above the trumpet part. That one might be worth some consideration, yet he could not quite decide just at the moment.

"Care for a game of cards?"

"No."

"Come on, don't be a bore."

The Phantom rolled his eyes. Little idiot! "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Don't you ever get bored?"

"No."

Raoul stretched, groaning noisily, then sighed. "Guess what? My parents are plotting something. But I don't know what it is."

"Really? That's fascinating." The Phantom did not interrupt his filling out a blank place in the second violins.

"You bet they are. But that's just what my mother is like. Never cross my mother."

"I know."

"You were one of very few she couldn't outstare yet."

"I won't let myself be outstared by a fop's mummy."

Raoul laughed. "No, I doubt you would. She's not particularly fond of you."

"Never expected her to," the Phantom muttered. He had seen Raoul's mother three times until now, twice at Raoul's place and once last week, when they had paid Chateaupers a little visit. A stern woman who did not like being contradicted. Somehow he wondered how she would get on with Claire Giry. Obviously she did not like mysterious masked men around her, but the Phantom did not care. Why should he? He did not see her that frequently, after all.

Raoul's father did not mind him much, though. A true nobleman, Vincent de Chagny was unexpectedly open towards everything all the same. He had been the first to say that he did not care whether his son married a countess or a young singer, and his wife had agreed soon enough, and at least she was very kind to Christine. But while the vicomtesse was highly suspicious of Christine's friends – especially of himself, the Phantom knew –, her husband never said anything. And when Christine had been brought here by Maurice, Raoul's father had agreed to this kind of safe-keeping straight away, quite the contrary to his wife, who had found it utterly unacceptable to make a young lady live underground with a… Well, she had not specified, yet the Phantom had a pretty good idea of what might have come had Christine and Maurice not been listening. Madman. Murderer. Monster.

"She doesn't mean it, though."

"What, those looks she keeps throwing me? Like I'm some misbehaving dog?"

Right on cue, Senta raced past the Phantom, chasing after a rat, which tried to flee into the water. But the dog did not give up the pursuit that easily, and soon enough she placed another limp, mangled form beside the Phantom's booted feet, wagging happily. Suppressing a sigh, the Phantom patted her head. At least she had brought her prey to him and not to Raoul, even though she actually belonged to the boy. But animals just tended to like him. Somehow they could feel that he was… different.

Still wagging, Senta sat down beside him expectantly, gazing up at him intently. One look into her pretty brown eyes told him what it was she was hoping for. It was there in her mind, right in the foremost place: image and smell of a biscuit.

"Have you fed the dog yet, kid?"

"In the morning, yes. She can have a biscuit, though, if she wants one."

"I daresay she does."

The peculiar thing about animals' minds, the Phantom thought as Raoul threw Senta a dry biscuit, which she caught in the air and crunched noisily, was that their thoughts and feelings were easy enough to understand, once you got used to the senses playing different roles. Smell and sound were very important, for example. Apart from that, they mainly thought in images. The whole structure was similar to a human's, though a lot less complicated. It was a straight, simple way of thinking, and not too difficult to understand with a bit of practice. And with some more practice, communication was possible – in images as well, and with memories of sounds and smells added for good measure. But once he had understood how it worked, he had mastered it easily enough, and animals understood him.

Or at least two of them did, Senta and his horse, César. With others, he had not experimented often enough, and rats hardly counted. Those minds were so small, so unbelievably simple while still being capable of some kind of thought, but they were different. Rats lived in a pack, it seemed, and sometimes the Phantom almost got the idea that the pack had some kind of collective mind, yet he was not quite sure, and rats had never drawn his curiosity much.

"Erik? About that girl…"

"What?" he growled roughly.

Yet Raoul would not be deterred. "That girl. At the Maxim. Don't think we haven't seen her. You spoke to her yesterday, and you did last week already. She's pretty, isn't she?"

"So what?"

He could be as unfriendly as he wanted, he noticed with annoyance, and still Raoul did not give up. "You'd rather have _her_ than a courtesan, right? Because last week Lilie said –"

"I don't care what she said!" the Phantom snarled. "It's none of her business, anyway!"

Everybody else would have given up the topic, but the idiot actually insisted. "She said that one's a decent girl, Erik. That means she's not interested in –"

"Hold your tongue, or I'll come and rip it out personally!" He really would, if that fop boy said one more word!

Raoul held his hands up defensively. "Now, now, no need to take that tone! I was merely wondering –"

"About things which are none of your concern," the Phantom finished the sentence for him. "I don't care what you say, and I don't care what Lilie says, and I don't care what Leyla and Suzette say, either. Is that understood?"

"Erik…"

"Yes or no?"

Again the boy ignored the warning in the Phantom's voice, even though Senta heard it quite clearly and whined softly. "I can't see what's the matter with you. I only asked you about that girl, and you pretend I offended you or something." And not only that, but now a grin appeared on the boy's face as well. "Or are you so particularly interested in her that you take offence at the very mention of her?"

Rising from his seat, the Phantom walked over to the boy slowly. With another little whine, Senta edged away from him as he advanced on Raoul.

He had always known it: The dog was a lot cleverer than that silly lad.

Turning towards him in his chair, Raoul did not even rise. One arm over the chair's back, he looked up at him expectantly, and seemingly completely at his ease. Only a brief flicker in his eyes told the Phantom that in fact Raoul was nervous. So he was bracing himself for a face-off between them? Very well, he could have one if he wanted it so badly. "Now listen to me very carefully, kid," he growled, softly and dangerously. "When I tell you something is none of your concern, then I mean it, and you shut up about it and waste no more thought on it. Is that understood? Otherwise I might have to use… _drastic measures_."

The threat hung in the air heavily, almost material and tangible, like an ugly fat bat. Lowering his gaze, he boy swallowed and nodded. Had he understood at last? Perhaps the Phantom should enter his mind to teach him a lesson he would not forget too soon, like giving him the feeling his skin was on fire or falling off in strips or something similar; the possibilities were almost endless.

But no. The boy was more stupid than it should be allowed, but he could not just torture him. Before his inner eye, he saw Raoul in the place of that Communard Maurice had asked him about last week, that man he had killed in the street. He had not just killed him, but played with him as well, like a predator playing with his prey, and he had learned that whatever trick he performed on a victim, nothing would show when the body was found. Nobody would ever find out. It was only logical, but this was the first proof he had seen. Raoul thrashing on the pavement trying to scream, yet the connection to his voice was broken, and nobody would ever know that a million fiery needles were piercing his skin… No. Not Raoul. The Communards, any of them, but not Raoul.

"Erik…" The boy reached out towards him, but he took a step back automatically. Nobody had the right to touch him… except girls, that was, and girls only if he was in the mood. "Erik, I'm your friend…"

"No, you're not." He did not have to think to say it. It came to him all by itself. And not just because it was the little fop, but on general principle. He had no friends.

Sighing, Raoul got up from his chair at last and came straight towards him, taking him by the shoulder, and as he shook the lad off, he just gripped the collar of his robe more firmly. "No, listen to me." Those bright, honest blue eyes were holding the Phantom's gaze, and he could have taken over the boy's mind easily. "I don't care what you think. But for my part, I _am_ your friend. And I don't give a bloody damn about whether you hate me or not. Because I understand. You tried to kill me, and I understand. Believe me or not, but while waiting to be sent forth to battle with my regiment, I wondered whether you were better off perhaps, away from the world, and I thought you weren't. I was. Even when sent to battle, maybe to my death, I was. Because I had lived under the sun and been happy, as happy as a man can be, and I had known love, and if I died, I knew I would be remembered with love. Whereas you spent a dark eternity alone. And then I came and took everything from you, even if I didn't mean to. I still don't mean to, but I love her as much as you do." He swallowed. "Don't hate me, Erik."

Swallowing in turn, the Phantom turned away. Why were his eyes stinging like that? How could he possibly be so pathetic? Suddenly he found that there was something much easier to say than he had expected. "I'm sorry."

"Already forgiven."

And Hell consume him, how could that boy be so pure, so good at heart? How could anyone, in that dark, cruel world?

This was the kind of man Christine deserved, not a foul creature from Hell as he was himself. A true angel.

Why did his eyes have to sting, curse them?

"And not just for Christine's sake," Raoul said behind him. "For your own."

The Phantom bit his lower lip. No, he was not going to be pathetic right now! "Are those the Christian virtues people are always going on about?"

"What? No. That's just me." Picking up one of the small model figures, Raoul twirled it between is fingers thoughtlessly. "It's not that they should not be respected and all; as a matter of fact, it's quite impossible for human beings to live together without values of some kind. It's just that… well, I'm getting a bit fed up with the Church these days."

That almost sounded like the boy had begun to see reason. The Phantom grinned; grinning helped against pathetic feelings welling up inside him, too. "Still the dogma of infallibility?"

"Mainly. But also some of those priests we had in the field. I feel they don't really care about God anymore. For some, it's just another job. I heard them talking among themselves; I'm not making that up. Or power." An expression of clear anger entered Raoul's youthful face. "I mean, why else would anyone proclaim he's infallible? Bloody pope wants to return to medieval times, if you ask me. Why else would he proclaim such a thing?"

The Phantom nodded. He had read about it in one of the papers Claire Giry had left lying around, and Claire had had to ask him what he was laughing about so hard. Throughout the whole rest of July and August, French newspapers had printed one furious article about the arrogance of Pius IX after the other, and it seemed that Germany was in an uproar as well.

Only that Germany was more busy with invading France at the moment.

"I mean, yes, it's only when he speaks in his function as pope, something like that," Raoul conceded, "but still, that one's a madman! He's against rationalism, too, which means he's against modern science and all. Just imagine! Serves them right we withdrew our men from Rome, in my opinion."

"They'll be overrun by those forces trying to unite Italy under one crown," the Phantom agreed. The Prussians had the same thing in mind, he suspected, to finally unite the German states to one. If they won this war, Prussia's dominant role among those states would become even stronger; that much was obvious even for someone who did not care about politics at all, like he did.

"Maybe he'll wake up and see reality, then," Raoul said grimly. "God forgive me for that talk, but it just disgusts me so."

"God doesn't hear you, kid," the Phantom stated, taking the small figure out of Raoul's hand before the boy could accidentally cause it any damage. It was a little ballerina in a thin blue dress, resembling Meg very closely.

"And God forgive _you_, as well," Raoul added. "Here, look, I found myself another pendant. A little act of rebellion against our field preacher, you might say."

"I know." It had not escaped the Phantom's notice that Raoul was wearing a small silver anchor on the thin gold chain around his neck now, instead of the little crucifix he had worn before.

"When you use a Christian interpretation, it's the symbol of hope."

"When you use a normal interpretation, it simply means you're a sailor," the Phantom grumbled. Why couldn't Raoul cease that Christian stupidity completely? It was pointless, after all. Love. Humility. Forgiveness. Mercy. For someone like him, they were only weakness. Yes, love as well. Love was making him vulnerable.

And redemption. Yes, grant me redemption, you sheep-brained hypocrites, and we'll discuss it.

And not even the men of church had accepted him as human, not even they, despite all their talk of mercy and love and all that, had been ready to help an outcast alone in a cold, empty desert. The only thing he had ever heard from them was that he should pray and seek God's forgiveness – for what he was, probably. As if it were his fault what he was. How he despised them!

"Good point," Raoul agreed, picking up another little doll. "Here, that's me! Why did you make a figure of me?"

"So I have someone to hang from the chandelier when I'm in a bad mood."

"Which is constantly," Raoul countered, giving the miniature chandelier in the model a gentle poke. "Why am I not hanging?"

"Oh, alright. I made it because Meg asked me to." The Phantom almost rolled his eyes. A silly request, but he had done so. As he replaced the little Meg doll on the table, a brief feeling of tenderness, of warm affection, passed through his awareness.

"And here's another little Christine." Raoul carefully placed his find in the line with the other Christine dolls. There were about twenty of them already.

Regarding the collection of little figures, the Phantom smiled. Out of the darkness, he had watched Christine's progress with fondness for many a year. There were several replicas of Meg as well, but not as many as of Christine.

And his secret favourite was still in his pocket.

"Can I ask a small favour of you?" Raoul suddenly said, his eyes still on the line of little models.

"What?" Not another attempt at getting him to play cards with the boy, hopefully!

"I want you to promise me something."

"Not before you tell me what this is about." He could have looked in the boy's mind, but that would have been a little boring, knowing everything before he was told.

"It's Christine." The lad took a deep breath. "Erik, if anything happens to me… will you make sure she is well?"

Oh, the silly boy! "You don't need to make me promise you that, kid."

"I know. But I want you to promise you'll be there for her. All the time. And…" Raoul licked his lips nervously. "And to take her back. Not to bear any kind of grudge against her because she wanted to marry me."

The Phantom sighed softly. There were wounds, it seemed, which never truly healed. Months had passed, and still his heart was bleeding at the memory of that moment when Christine had come back for a little while, to give him her engagement ring to remember him by. When he had understood that this was good-bye forever, that his rising hope had been in vain, he had truly thought he felt his heart break. And it was bleeding still. It would never stop bleeding, not even in those moments when Christine took him in her arms and he rested his head against hers. He would always see her go that final time.

"Erik?"

"No, not necessary, either." His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears. No, how could he harbour any grudge against her? How could he ever? He loved her, an unhappy, desperate love, a love doomed from the very beginning, but he still loved her. He drew his strength from her, his courage, his will to live. She was in his mind always, the awareness of her without which he knew he would feel more alone than he had ever felt in all his lonely life. Once he had hoped that she would give him light after his empty darkness, but she had cast him into a deeper darkness, and only her presence in his head saved him from wasting away, from dying of his own bleeding heart.

How long could a heart bleed until it was bled dry? How long could a heart still beat that had lost all strength to beat?

"I still want you to. Please. To step in when I'm not there anymore. To take my place when I die."

Oh, all those times she had searched the list of the dead and wounded and of those missing in battle, all those times when deep down inside him a tiny hope had risen… And how he had hated himself for it, every single time. Scavenger, waiting to take a dead man's girl…

He tried not to listen to the mourning song of a single violin in his head.

"Erik, please. At least I'll die in peace if it should come to that, knowing you'll be there to love her as I did."

Turning, the Phantom faced Raoul fully, and their eyes met. In the soft candlelight, Raoul's eyes looked darker, of a deeper blue than they seemed in the light. And behind them, a feeling of sadness, of loss, but still… of hope. For Raoul, there always was hope, even in the face of death. It was there in his head, not concealed at all. The boy had looked death in the eye, and he was not afraid. A lingering sadness there was, the grief of parting, but still, there was the belief, no, the knowledge that he and those he loved would be reunited again under another sun.

Hope, hope in the face of utmost darkness. There was nothing those honest eyes would ever hide.

Wordlessly, the Phantom nodded, and equally wordlessly, Raoul nodded in turn. At this moment, they did not need words to understand each other. "Thank you," the lad whispered, quite unnecessarily, for it was written in his eyes as well.

Senta was lying on the carpet nearby, watching them, and there was trust in her eyes.

"Do you know what it's like," Raoul said softly, "to see men dying around you, good men, men you have known, to see them dying and know they have gone forever from this world, just as simply as that? And then you wonder why death takes them and not you, and around you your world is crumbling, and you feel like this is the end, the end of ages, of time itself, and still the sun is shining on you and you can't understand why…" He swallowed. "Because the sun will always shine. The sun does not care."

"And you wish it would fall from the sky and set the world on fire," the Phantom continued quietly. "You wish for it all to end so you don't have to bear it anymore. And in this moment, the thought of immortality holds nothing but despair."

"How do you know?" Raoul seemed surprised, but at the same time his eyes said that somehow he had expected this… somehow he had hoped for this. "You've never wandered aimlessly over a battlefield, bidding a silent last good-bye to those you knew. I told Christine, and she listened, but she did not truly understand, not all of it. But you… you do."

"Yes. I do." His heart was heavy as he said it, heavy with a memory that was not his own. He refused to let it be his own.

There was a question in the boy's eyes, a question he did not want to see, and still it was there, and it would not go away. "Tell me," Raoul said gently.

It was nothing more than a dream, even if that dream was a recurring nightmare so intense as he had never experienced it before. But at the same time, it was more. It was so much more.

He spoke quietly, and Raoul listened, without asking a single question, though the Phantom saw many fleeting through his mind. As the boy placed a hand on his shoulder, he did not shake it off.


	10. VIII In the Darkness

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: I do apologize for taking so long. Currently I'm going through a rather rough time at university. As I'm writing this, I'm already working on the third chapter of Book Two, but I haven't been able to continue for several days. At least I saved some chapters up, so that there's only the proof-reading still to do._

_Pertie__: Thanks in turn for reviewing. Without that, there wouldn't be much pleasure in updating._

_The Musician of the Night: I seem to have a habit of messing with people's moods. ;)_

_Gemini: Il mio Italiano è molto limitato, ma provarlo. :) Grazie per il review. Raoul è una grande problema emozinale per Erik, si è possibile dire questo, sei corretta. Non sa che vuò che Raoul succede qualcose. Naturalemente, non ametterebelo. ;-)_

_Alisendre__: Here's a handkerchief. Do blow your nose. :P_

_Nugrey__: I think that chapter was necessary just for the reason you name, that the readers see how their relationship develops further. The "war experiences" are not my own luckily, and my knowledge drawn from books is limited to historical circumstances, not the feelings of soldiers themselves. I'm the son of a Swiss colonel, yet Switzerland has been at peace for many generations now. I admit I made all of it up. I just used my imagination, put myself in Raoul's place during combat so to say, and then let him tell what I felt. Wait with liking Raoul's parents until you meet them. ;-) Oh, and do have fun with your cats. lol_

_Ashley: You might just be right with your prediction… Yes, an ugly fat bat is funny to me as well, but I assume it would be a nasty, not very appetizing, maybe even scary thing to most of you._

_Bea: If you Gollum me, there'll be no more Gerry pics for you. ;P Raoul is definitely "growing up" through the experiences he was forced to go through, so he is gaining some insights, too. No, Erik doesn't care for politics at all, and he isn't getting involved yet. The bit of Communard hunting from time to time is just done because he despises them even more than the rest of humanity, and he kills for his "experiments", apparently, as the last chapter hinted. Interestingly, those two passages about love and redemption and similar you quote were in fact inserted later on, during proof-reading. And we'll see about redemption, maybe in a sense no one of you expects yet…_

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**VIII. In the Darkness**

"I can feel him, as clearly as I can feel any of you. His presence is like a wheel of fire turning in the sky, and the sparks will set the dry fields beneath him alight. It has begun."

"My Lord?" The man's usually so calm face seemed unsettled as he looked up to the speaker from where he squatted on the ground, half-heartedly stoking the fire burning low in the shadows, and he raked a hand through his short blond hair, something he did not do normally.

"It is many leagues yet to Paris, Lászlo. But I can already feel him clearly, and I can feel what is going on. There is turmoil inside him."

"Is he remembering already?"

"Yes, and too early. Too soon. He is not ready for it."

"But my Lord, he is a grown man. A strong man."

No, Lászlo did not understand. How could he? "He is a dire storm walking the earth. But he is just a child at heart."

Sparks sprang up from the campfire, tiny blossoms of light in the darkness. At the edge of the forest, only a few paces away, one of the three horses tethered there stirred and whinnied softly.

"If I may be so bold, my Lord –" But Lászlo broke off before he had finished the sentence.

"You want to know what _I_ saw when I first had those dreams."

Lászlo swallowed. "Yes, my Lord."

"It was centuries ago."

"Yet you do not forget."

"No." There was a loud crack as an ember exploded in the dying glow, and a figure lying stretched out by the fireside stirred and slowly sat up. The weak, unsteady light illuminated a young, pale face framed by long strands of untidy hair of a colour similar to Lászlo's. "But now is not the time for stories."

"Forgive me, my Lord."

"There is nothing to forgive." A gust of wind made the long grass wave, and the sparks danced. "Now put out the fire. Sándor, ready the horses. We have a long way to go yet while the night is young."


	11. BOOK TWO: Parting the Fog

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Still having a foul time. But it's getting better. And reviews really cheer me up… hint, hint ;)_

_Pertie__: Ah, yes.__ The nasty author actually imagined how all those who had not read _The King of the Catacombs_ would be irritated by that chapter, all the time snickering nastily, of course. ;) Well, actually I'm glad there's at least someone who hasn't, because this way there is at least one I managed to irritate. I did that in the last chapter of Book One of _The King of the Catacombs_ as well; I introduced a crucial character by letting him remain completely mysterious, just like here. You're gathering just as much as those others were supposed to gather then: They are indeed talking about Erik. wanders off cackling manically, happy with the fact that he DID manage to confuse someone, after all ;-)_

_Nugrey__: Now you would know what you speak of, of course… ;)_

_Alisendre__: Maybe not exactly, but it fits rather well. :)_

_Bea: Oh, what you wouldn't do for Gerry… ;-) Endearing? I actually did not expect people to actually like him. :)_

_The Musician of the Night: All work periods end sometimes. At least I hope so. :) Lászlo and Sándor are pretty high up on the cast list, in comparison to others, so there will be more of them indeed._

_Ashley: Sounds like you have weird problems with animals… Do tell me more. :) No problem with taking long, I know how it is; I have enough to do myself. Don't worry overmuch about Kay, though, it's not really worth the trouble in my opinion. I read most of it over the holidays, and It's just a bit of phan fiction, really._

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**Book Two: Parting the Fog**

**I. Friend or Phantom  
II. I bid you welcome  
III. Pity comes too late**

_Think of all the things we've shared and seen  
Don't think about the way things might have been  
Think of me  
Think of me waking, silent and resigned  
Imagine me  
Trying too hard to put you from my mind  
And you'll find  
That once again you'll long  
To take your heart back and be free  
If you ever find a moment  
Stop and think of me  
_–Jean-Marie Chalumeau, Hannibal

_Sad to return to find the land we love  
Threatened once more by Roma's far-reaching grasp…_

–Jean-Marie Chalumeau, Hannibal


	12. I Friend or Phantom

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's all over! I passed Commercial Law with top marks. Well, reason enough to put up another chapter, along with a new instalment for the _Holiday Special_, which contains a few little spoilers for this story here, so be warned. ;)_

_Pertie__: I'm not forcing you; you'll understand that one easily enough. Just wait a little, and you'll find out. still snickering happily at the idea of having a surprise effect on someone Oh, don't mind me. ;-)_

_The Musician of the Night: Well, Book Three of _The King of the Catacombs_ had two chapters only, remember:) A little patience, please, Lászlo and Sándor will be back by Book Four._

_Ashley: Pretty weird, those animals. lol I was bitten by a mouse once, but that hardly counts. Oh yes, and once by a crane. ;) Hope you'll be earning a bit more soon._

_Nugrey__: Well, those were the most fitting quotes I could find. ;) Glad they seem to work._

**I. Friend or Phantom**

"Please Madame, be reasonable. We need to place young Monsieur de Chagny _somewhere_."

Sitting straight in her seat, Madame Giry tapped the office floor with her cane irritably. Oh, how she wanted to poke this Gilles André with it! Telling her to be reasonable! _Her_! Who did he think he was? "Nonsense," she snapped. "Do you truly think nobody would notice him with the ballet? When he's spending half of the time falling over his own feet because he has no idea how to dance?"

"Why not put him with the stagehands?" came Richard Firmin's voice from behind her, where he was busy pouring them all a glass of wine. If asked who of the Opéra Populaire's two managers was more bothersome, she would have really had a hard time deciding. "True enough, we _must_ hide him _somewhere_."

Madame Giry snorted. "Do you really think he would blend in with the stagehands?"

André's bushy grey eyebrows shifted together as he frowned. He was a small, nervous man with his hair standing up in all directions constantly. "How about the chorus, then? Why not place him among those lads?"

"Yes, the chorus," Firmin agreed immediately. "Nobody cares whether he can sing or not, as long as he doesn't draw attention to himself."

Lord in Heaven, how could they both be so blind? "But he will. A new member always draws everyone's attention, and if he only pretends to sing, they'll start wondering for sure. Trust me, he is safe where he is."

"They will find him eventually." Firmin placed a glass on the table before her, and she accepted it with a nod, but did not pick it up to drink. Then he sat down beside André, towering above him, and not only because of that ridiculous slicked-up forelock of his.

"They never will, just like they will never find the Opera Ghost."

As she had expected, mentioning the Phantom made those two uncomfortable. André was practically squirming in his seat, while Firmin's knuckles whitened on his armrests. "So…", Firmin ventured at last, "this matter is in the Opera Ghost's hands, I take it?"

Madame Giry nodded firmly. "And out of yours."

"Ah. Right. Well. Fine." Firmin brushed his enormous forelock out of his face, despite the fact that it would not have been necessary, while André briefly passed a handkerchief over his brow, like he always did sooner or later once the topic turned in any Phantom-related direction. The Phantom did not even have to be present to have such effects on them. Not anymore.

"Yes, but what if they go looking for the Lord Phantom himself?" the man at Madame Giry's side spoke up. He was thin, even fragile-seeming, and he had a small, neat moustache and equally neat grey curls. As it appeared, Monsieur Reyer was the only one who dared to doubt the Phantom's word. "They will have heard the stories, and once they find that part of the ways into the cellars are barred, or once they don't find the way at all, they will demand the blueprints for sure. And once they have them, they know their way."

"Not if the Phantom has done a few changes to the structure." Not many, but there certainly were quite a few. Well, some, at least.

"Yes, but has he moved walls around?"

"No," Madame Giry had to admit. "In most cases not." She knew Reyer was right, and she found it highly annoying, though she would rather have it Reyer was right than one of the managers.

"Madame, is he aware of the danger he might well find himself in, once they come here and start asking questions?" The creases in the conductor's brow were those of worry, and worry tinged his voice. "The Comte de Chateaupers will be quite willing to cover his back again, I'm sure, but of what use is that to him if he is threatened from his very own territory?"

He was speaking out loud what Madame Giry had pondered herself when she had not been able to sleep at night, ever since they had received the message three days ago. Chateaupers had covered up for the Phantom when the emperor had taken interest in the case, she knew, back in those days when there had still been an emperor, but would he be able to without endangering his post and life under the Communards' reign? It was miracle enough he had not yet been removed; probably because the chief of police could not be that easily substituted, and because Chateaupers, despite his noble birth, had never been interested in nobility much, but had employed those of skill rather than those of noble birth. Would there be anything he still could do for the Phantom if the Commune Council truly established their new headquarters here? Not that anyone had truly mentioned headquarters yet, but from private meeting place to headquarters… it was not exactly far.

She hoped they would not come. Oh, how she hoped they would find some other prestigious place to occupy!

"He may be a sly fellow," André put in, "but how can he deal with legion of Commune followers hunting him?"

"And just killing them won't do this time," Firmin added. "It worked with that Lost Ones business, apparently, but only since they had a very limited number of men, not an entire city at their disposal. Does he want to kill the entire city, then?"

"Trust me to that." The soft, gentle voice made everybody in the room jump, including Madame Giry. Lord above, Erik! Did he always have to do that?

Suddenly standing beside the managers, who both paled considerably, the Phantom smiled one of his most predatory smiles. Immaculately dressed as always at such occasions, from his cloak to his black leather gloves, and with his long hair brushed back neatly – Madame Giry's fingers itched to cut it every time she saw it hanging down over his collar – he was, as usually, an impressive sight. This time, he was not wearing his bronze-coloured waistcoat, but a dark green one embroidered with silver, doubtlessly made of silk, just as the other. "Messieurs, I can't believe you are truly concerned about my personal safety. So let's be open. If they should take me, what's in it for you?"

André, who was sitting closer to him, practically cowered from him, and it seemed to Madame Giry that he was at the point of slipping under the table. Firmin, however, cleared his throat. "This is an accusation you cannot prove… my Lord Phantom."

The Phantom smiled. "Ah, so you do remember your manners, more or less. Yet you forget that I can see right through your eyes, no matter if you avert or close them, right down to the bottom of your petty, shrivelled little soul, Monsieur Firmin." He pronounced every word with delicacy, and yet those last few were like whip-cracks. "Yet I should not blame you for your fear, your weakness." At once his voice was gentle again, and Madame Giry vainly searched for a note of disdain in it. "It has occurred to you that if it should ever come as far as you dread, giving me to them might spare your life. I wouldn't count on that. The Communards are honourless men, Monsieur Firmin. Besides," and here the smile reappeared, "I seriously wonder how you would get hold of me to turn me over to them."

Firmin stubbornly stared at the table before him. It was his own desk, and it was littered with papers. Yet only one truly seemed to draw his eyes.

"Give it here," the Phantom commanded quietly, following his gaze.

Without looking at him, Firmin obeyed his request.

This time, it was André's turn to clear his throat and speak up. "But surely you have received this message yourself, my Lord Phantom?"

Lazily smoothing out the paper with a black-gloved hand, the Phantom shot him a measuring glance which made him duck once more. "But it can't hurt to find out how much exactly someone else knows, now can it?" he stated slyly. André was right; the Phantom knew everything from Chateaupers himself. Yet still, the Phantom was a skilled manipulator, and he knew how to win respect with the smallest of hints. And maybe he was not even pretending that he knew more. Maybe he truly did.

In the silence that ensued, the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed unnaturally loud.

At last the Phantom threw Chateaupers's message back onto the table. "So he tells you to hide the boy, mainly," he stated. "Is that all he trusts you to know?"

Honestly, this was no time for showing off! Did he want his ears boxed for pure arrogance, or what? "Why don't you inform them of what they need to know in your opinion, then?" Madame Giry asked wearily.

Only the tiniest twitch of the left corner of his mouth showed that the Phantom was not exactly pleased with what she had put in. "Fine. When we were alone, Chateaupers spoke of Delannay himself."

There was a collective intake of breath, from Madame Giry as well. "My God," Reyer murmured, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Delannay," Firmin repeated, while André merely sat thunderstruck. "Michel Delannay?"

The Phantom waved the question away impatiently. "Do you know any other Delannay?"

"I thought they were only looking for some kind of storerooms, apart from a meeting place for their Council, and they were going to use our cellars," André muttered.

"Like they did with the new Grande Opéra? No. Messieurs, you have to be aware that this house is the most prestigious place they can move into currently, apart from our old emperor's residences, which they are not going to use for ideological reasons. Moreover, it is a place where mainly so-called nobility meets." Despite his hatred for the Communards, his disdain for the Parisian upper class was obvious as well. "They tried to open it for workers by forcing down the ticket prices, but since that did not work, they are moving in themselves."

Firmin groaned. "This time we're ruined for sure!"

"Make sure not to mention _that_ to them," the Phantom stated coolly.

André shot him a look of confusion. "Why not? For tactical reasons?"

"Because they claim property is theft, anyway."

André's jaw moved silently as he worked the meaning of this out, while Firmin cried, outraged, "How dare they? It's _them_ who do the thieving!"

"Of course it is. And the statement is illogical in itself. But that does not change anything for us."

Firmin took a calming breath. "So what do you suggest, my Lord?" Madame Giry knew that he hated to ask questions of that kind, since as a manager of the Opera House he preferred to be in charge himself. But this time, he must be glad to have someone who took decisions from him, because he certainly had no clue what to do.

Slowly, the Phantom's lips shifted into a leer. "Let them come."


	13. II I bid you welcome

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm working at the second from last chapter of Book Three at the moment, which will contain quite a few surprises. g Thanks for all your congrats for my good marks, they were appreciated. ;) New author policy: Reviewers may pat my Erik. ;-) (Gosh, I'm such a sucker for reviews…)_

_Pertie__: He's up to no good, of course, but you'll find out soon enough… It's very useful I'm taking Forensic Medicine this year, that's all I'm saying… twisted leer Thanks for congratulating me, I still feel rather smug. ;-)_

_Polly: See who's stopped lurking. g The history geek inside you is wriggling? More than that is wriggling inside your head, if you ask me… lol But right, you're a saint, you're allowed to have wriggly bits about your personality. :-) About Mme Giry and Reyer… I'm hinting at lots and lots of possible "ships", but those two… I don't think so. Reyer is an asexual being to me somehow. :) And yes, Erik's going to be a wicked, wicked boy now… ;)_

_Ashley: About the crane: It was at the zoo, and I was very small and was holding onto the wire fence, and this large crane came and curiously pecked at my hand. Luckily I was wearing gloves. lol In this chapter, you'll find someone more to hate. Does that comfort you? g Yes, ickle Ghostie is growing his hair in the _Holiday Special_, so you could say it's long already. No, you can't cut it, sorry, he needs it for this story here. ;-) But I think a snuggle will be possible, I just don't know yet when exactly. ;)_

_The Musician of the Night: Thanks. Everything will sort itself out? Nah, Erik is going to sort it out. ;-)_

_TheQueenSarah__: Wow, some more lovely reviews. No need to feel guilty about not reviewing everything and immediately. :) You write music? Wow. I couldn't do that, I'm utterly unoriginal as far as music is concerned. I can play practically anything on my violin, but composing? No talent at all. Yes, I won't have Erik sneering at everybody. In theory he hates the whole world, but practically he does admit there are others (or certain talents in them) he appreciates. About "Raoul-keeping", you summed it up nicely, he considers Raoul a bothersome little boy who has to be kept under close surveillance. And Raoul can behave a little childishly at times. As for the animals, I just gave it some thoughts and then came up with this as the most plausible way, since it corresponds with their senses. Well, Raoul is not stupid, and neither is he blind, and he has a good heart, so he was bound to eventually understand. About his Church opinion, I'm glad to get a positive remark about it, since I don't consider myself a Christian and so wasn't sure whether his point of view was believable. The toughest scene for me is where Christine gives him back the ring, so we almost agree. ;) And it reminds me of something in my past just as well, so I understand what you mean. As for your other review, the fire imagery is even more important in this story than in KotC; it begins with fire, so to say, and fire carries a significance throughout the story. Just keep an eye open for it. ;-)_

_Bea: Don't you like the concept of Raoul in tights? lol You never know about the managers, wouldn't trust them either. They don't like your favourite Ghostie, remember? And about the question what I was waiting for: Some more reviews, in fact. g_

_Alisendre__: About the titles… well, I just pick one and hope it fits. ;)_

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**II. I bid you welcome**

Michel Delannay scanned his surroundings suspiciously. This was going to be his office? Well, it was not bad, but it looked a bit too expensive, for his taste. A little tasteless, even. Maybe. He would have to consider this later on, when there was more time. Maybe he and LaCroix would change it a bit.

That was, if he really let LaCroix use that second desk. He had not quite decided on that matter.

Making sure that it did not seem too hurried, he let his gaze return to those before him. He sitting, them standing… excellent. Just as he wanted it. And he was not going to offer them seats. After all, they should see who was in charge here from now on. "So," he began slowly. LaCroix would steeple his fingers now, he was sure, but Delannay was not the man to steeple his fingers. Delannay was a very practical man. "Messieurs André and Firmin, the managers, Monsieur Reyer, the conductor, Madame Giry, the ballet instructor, and Monsieur Gabriel, the chorus master. Am I correct?"

There were several affirmative nods, and the shorter of the managers – André, if he remembered it correctly – replied, "Yes, that's right."

But they had not given all their names, apparently. "So who are those other chaps?"

"Our tenors," answered the woman, smiling slightly. "Faithful as dogs."

Two of the men in question grinned at that. Both were young men, in their late twenties perhaps, one maybe a little older.

"Do you have names?"

"Pierre Leblanc, monsieur," the older of the two introduced himself. He had a handsome, but altogether not noteworthy face and brown hair parted more or less precisely in the middle.

"Patrice Roux." The other's hair was sandy-coloured and a little two long for Delannay's taste; it hung over his ears in untidy curls.

The third did not reply. He merely answered Delannay's look by a sharp stare of his own, out of cold blue eyes. He was tall, taller than most others, and his chestnut-coloured hair was bound back in a short ponytail, which in itself made Delannay frown. There was something utterly impertinent about him, not only about his hairstyle and his unblinking stare, but also about the way he leaned against the doorframe with one shoulder lazily, both hands in his trouser pockets. While his two colleagues wore what passed for suits, he was dressed in what could best be described as leisure clothes, rather loose-fitting and even a little crumpled. He had combined a pair of khaki trousers with a velvet jacket in a darker brown, and it was not even a jacket one might wear with a suit. At least his shirt was white, yet the topmost three buttons were left open, and he wore no cravat of any kind. Not that Delannay cared much about a person's clothing, but those snobbish opera people might at least show some respect by putting on their best. Yet this one… this one was bold, it seemed. And strangely, he had something about his bearing that suggested it was not him who was being impertinent, but everybody else. Moreover, he carried a definite air of elegance, even if his shirt was not tucked into his trousers properly at one side.

And there was something else, too: This one was dangerous. Delannay instinctively felt it, a strange predatory quality about the man, as if he were about to pounce any moment. To pounce, and to kill.

And his eyes sent a chill down Delannay's back.

Yet something about him was… wrong. Delannay could not put a finger on it, but he was certain there was. He tried to concentrate, but it felt like he was enshrouded in a wisp of fog that would not leave his eyes, and he was attempting to part that veil vainly…

But he would not allow himself to be intimidated by some arrogant rogue, odd feeling or not! "And you?" he demanded sharply. "Haven't you heard the question?"

The reaction of the assembled was most unsettling. They looked at the man, or at least at the place where he stood, then at each other, and all their features clearly showed irritation. "I beg your pardon," André said at last, "but who were you just talking to?"

The man in the brown velvet jacket smiled.

"That one," Delannay answered impatiently, pointing his chin. "Speak up, man."

Again everybody looked at the doorframe. "Who?" the woman said.

The conductor, a thin man with a little greyish-white moustache, shook his head. "There is nobody there."

"Don't play with me," Delannay snapped. "The man in brown. Right at your shoulder, madame." Did they not realize he could have them all executed?

And then something most peculiar happened: The ballet instructor held out her hand in the indicated direction – and reached right through the man! "There's nobody there," she repeated Reyer's words.

Delannay swallowed. Nobody there. Was he going mad? Or was this some trickery of theirs?

_Perhaps_, a bodiless voice in his head whispered, _you should ask them about the Opera Ghost…_

Nonsense! The Opera Ghost was a fable, nothing more, a story to draw more people into the Opéra Populaire!

_Haven't you read the papers lately, then?_

That rubbish about that so-called Phantom being real? As if he were that gullible!

_Gullible?__ Only a fool denies what he sees before him with his own eyes._

Trickery! All trickery!

_And who is that voice in your head, then?_

Who… Indeed, yes! What was he hearing there? Was he really going mad? Well, he had had a busy day, but all the same, never before had he hallucinated!

Again he had the feeling of vainly trying to wave away a foggy cloud from before his eyes.

_Seeing is believing, Monsieur Delannay. Or should I rather say, hearing is believing?_

The man in the velvet jacket was still smiling, but his lips had not moved one single time.

Should he have a word with LaCroix about this? No, better not. What was LaCroix to think? So what else was he to do about it? See a physician? No. He could not afford to show weakness, not in his position.

Well, there was one thing he could try… "Aren't you going to tell me a few stories about that Opera Ghost of yours?" he asked gruffly, avoiding to look at the apparently invisible man.

He watched their faces closely, but in none of them a muscle moved. "Maybe he will see you," the ballet instructor said lightly. "If you ask politely enough, that is."

How dare she? "Watch your tongue, woman!" he snapped.

_Watch yours, filth._

The ballet instructor threw him what he would consider a dirty look, her chin held high. Very well, someone he would keep an eye on. Someone he might have to get rid of.

"So you insist he exists?" He should not seem too curious, but still… he needed to find out about this. Maybe there _were_ ghosts, who knew?

They all nodded in unison. "We've seen him often enough," Firmin said. "He's easy to recognize."

"He wears a mask," André added. "Always. Usually a white one, and only over the right side of his face. And a sweeping black cloak."

"And an evening dress," Leblanc spoke up. "Even in the afternoon."

"All in black," supplied Madame Giry, who was wearing black herself.

"But I've seen him in a bronze-coloured waistcoat," Roux interjected.

"No, it's green," Leblanc protested immediately.

"Bronze-coloured!" Roux insisted.

"Green. Dark green. Do you think I'm blind?"

"D'you think _I_ am?"

Delannay wanted to tell them to be quiet, but Madame Giry was faster, making them fall silent with just a wave of her hand. It seemed that she carried some authority among the singers, too; definitely something Delannay would have to remember.

"He is everywhere," the woman said quietly. "And nowhere."

"And you think I should believe that?" He always wore a mask… That invisible man wore none, but Delannay was not too sure whether that was calming.

Oh, that irritating, irritating fog!

Maybe he should mention something to LaCroix after all?

No, enough of that! The ballet instructor's reaching through that man might just have been a trick. A trick, yes. They were trying to fool them. And they would not succeed! He would never allow it!

_You know_, said the bodiless voice in his head, _I harbour a specific dislike for ridiculous little men who think they understand everything._

Delannay refused to listen.

Right opposite him, the mysterious man still smiled, wearing a smug look that was most annoying.

"Fine," Delannay said decidedly. "Here's what you're going to do. Your performances will continue as usual, and so will the rehearsals, but the managers find themselves a new office. Apart from that, do things as you always do them. Just keep going. And leave the cellars to me. One man sets foot below the first level and he's a dead man. Is that understood?"

They all nodded, and Delannay thought he saw a hint of tension in both the conductor's and the ballet instructor's face. He decided to keep an eye on both.

Were they hiding something in the cellars, perhaps? Just as Delannay was intending to hide something? Well, he would find out soon enough, wouldn't he?

_Your grasp of rhetoric about equals that of a monkey screeching in a tree._

Delannay shot the man in brown a look of pure loathing, no matter whether he was there or not. If he was just trying to fool him –

And then it happened. As the others had filed out of the room, the man gave him a brief, mocking nod, then dissolved into nothingness.


	14. III Pity comes too late

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: No, there was no Raoul in the last chapter. I didn't expect anyone would come up with that; it was quite surprising. But well, it's all my wicked Erik's fault, I guess. ;)_

_The Musician of the Night: Yes, you can pat Erik a little. There he is, looking slightly drowsy, it's a good occasion when he's still half asleep. g Pronunciation of Créon's name… well, the crayon with more "eh" than "ay" is a good start, actually. ;) The stress is very slightly on the second syllable (but only very slightly, this is French, after all gg), and you don't hear the n. The last o shouldn't sound like your typical English "oh" (that would sound so odd lol), but just a straight o sound, and with a hint of nasality, if that is a proper word. g Only a hint, mind you. Got it? ;-) ULT Unidentified Leaning Tenor? lol! You won't find him on the cast list, so the conclusion that Erik has something to do with it is correct. No, I never thought of Raoul. lol_

_Hotaru: devours muffins together with Erik belches happily is hit around the head by Erik Ouch:-)_

_Pertie: Yes, you're yet going to find out. ;)_

_Bea: Sorry, couldn't resist. I thought, one more review and I'm doing it, and you were that one. ;) Yes, there's a new trick employed in this. And driving Delannay mad is the point precisely. gg Funny how some at first thought it was Raoul; I never thought of that possibility. lol Why deny the Ghost's existence when it's a good method of driving Delannay mad? Now the managers are believers, it's time for another unbeliever to be irritated (and maybe some more…) by all the Ghost stories…_

_Nugrey: Thanks, I was afraid the style was no good. Altogether I get the feeling I'm messing this up, compared to the first part. Yes, you are quite correct in assuming what you assume. ;)_

…

…

…

**III. Pity comes too late**

"See you in a moment, Erik!" Meg cried, racing past the Phantom as he turned to ascend the stairs. "No, wait!" And back she came, laughing merrily, her blond hair flying behind her as she cannoned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Nice Ghostie. Ickle Ghostie."

"Don't strain my patience, piglet." Yet how could he be angry with her? She was such a sweet little thing, and he knew she loved him dearly.

"Ickle Ghostie. Icky Ghostie." And she tried to bite his ear.

"What is it you want?" he asked, nudging her chin away gently. "Oh, and don't run around like bitten by a tarantula in the Comte de Chateaupers's house."

"Why shouldn't I? He doesn't mind."

"Think of Raoul's mother."

"Oh." Meg giggled. "Right you are." Then she swatted him around the head playfully. "Why do you always have to be right?"

"Because you're always wrong. Now run along and play."

"Bad Ghostie! I'm going to tell my mother."

"Not if Bad Ghostie eats you first."

Squealing in exaggerated panic, but a moment later already breaking into giggles once more, Meg fled down the corridor, after Raoul and Senta, and the Phantom could hear her thundering down the stairs into the storeroom in the cellars where Chateaupers's billiard-table stood. She and Raoul would soon be engaged in a fierce tournament, no doubt, with Christine providing them with advice while keeping Senta from leaping onto the table, as they usually did when they came here.

Smiling, he climbed the stairs to Chateaupers's study on the first floor. His host was expecting him up there, after all, just as always after lunch, like on all the previous occasions when he had been here. They would have a word in private once Chateaupers had finished his preparations. Why he needed preparations, the Phantom had no idea, yet he suspected that the chief of police took precise notes of all their encounters and spent the ten minutes after lunch jotting down all his interesting observations from during mealtimes. Well, if it fascinated him so much… As long as he did not start taking photographs, the Phantom did not care.

Chateaupers would want to hear about his encounter with Delannay, no doubt. Remembering his little adventure from the previous afternoon, the Phantom grinned to himself. However, this was not all, if he was any judge. Chateaupers had acted rather strangely during lunch, as far as the chief of police could be said to do so. The Phantom had noticed a certain air of suppressed excitement about him, of great curiosity perhaps. No doubt, there was something on his mind, and something he deemed important. Something that interested him greatly.

Well, the Phantom thought, still grinning, let's see about that…

He knocked, then entered without waiting for an affirmative answer. Of course, he would have hated that kind of behaviour had the places been exchanged, but Chateaupers could do with a bit of bothering from time to time. He bothered him just as well, after all, always asking questions about things which were none of his business.

As he stepped over the threshold and pulled the heavy oak door shut behind him, Gérard de Chateaupers rose from his chair, taking off his glasses and placing them on the desk before him. "Ah, Erik. Punctual as usual. It's half past one precisely."

The Phantom shrugged. "You wanted me to be here at that time. Finished your preparations?"

"Yes, thank you. Do take a seat."

"I'll remain standing, thank you."

"As you wish." Chateaupers sat down again, as always giving his dark waistcoat a little tug as he did so. He was dressed correctly, just like every time the Phantom saw him, but still, he missed the elegance. It was strange, really, but although the Comte de Chateaupers was clearly a gentleman, and although he dressed and behaved like one, and even though he was in an excellent physical condition, as it seemed, he lacked the grace that might have been expected. There was authority about him, as well as an air of strength, but no, no true elegance. He did not have a nobleman's face, too; his features were rough and hard, like hewn from crude stone. But there was intelligence in his dark eyes.

"I have interesting news for you, Erik. And for myself as well, I must admit." There it was again, that clear curiosity. "My inquiries have been successful at last."

"I congratulate you," the Phantom replied, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. _Be civil with a policeman_, Raoul had said, months ago already. _Especially with a high-ranking one._ _It can save you lots of trouble._

"My men have at last located your mother."

The Phantom groaned. "I told you not to pursue _that_ any further!"

"Oh, but it's essential." Chateaupers threw him one of those looks the Phantom knew so well, his eyebrows slightly raised while frowning, so that they formed two straight lines leading upwards towards the base of his nose. "I want to know who you really are."

"But I don't care who I really am." What did it interest Chateaupers, anyway? "I'm just me, and that's bad enough already."

"I don't think you're taking this seriously."

"No," the Phantom said frankly. No need to be civil when the policeman in question was poking his nose into things which were none of his business.

"But you realize you're not entirely human?"

"No," the Phantom growled, "I'm part animal. If you truly found my mother, did she tell you she had a liaison with an ape or something?" Yes, of course, Chateaupers meant well actually, and he made sure nobody bothered the Phantom if he could help it, but that did not mean that he could bother him himself as much as he liked!

"You're not entirely human," Chateaupers repeated woodenly, ignoring that last remark. "You're more."

"Oh, not Nietzsche again." Nothing wrong with Nietzsche, actually; that the man seemed to detest humanity in general was reason enough to like him. But all the times Chateaupers had already lectured him on the possibility that he might be the superhuman Nietzsche had written about…

"You may deny it, but there might be some truth in what Créon told you."

The Phantom felt his features contort before he brought them under his control again. Créon was a filthy liar, nothing more! Luckily he had not yet mentioned those recurring nightmares to Chateaupers. Still they came practically every night, and as intense as ever, maybe even more intense, if that was possible. There had been a few blessed nights when he had slept without being haunted by them, but once they came back, they seemed worse than ever to him.

And by now, everybody knew. Christine knew, of course, and so did Raoul, and Meg did, and Claire because Meg had told her, and Gaston because Christine had told him, and Serge because Gaston had told him, and who knew who else.

"You ought to see her."

"I'll be damned if I do."

"You're being stubborn."

"No," the Phantom snarled. "I just don't want to." To Hell with it, that had sounded quite worthy of Raoul! Or of that foolish Roger, even.

Chateaupers was turning his glasses between his fingers thoughtlessly. "I have not yet spoken to her, because I'd like you to be present."

"Well, small chance of that." The Phantom snorted. "Anyway, the last time I saw her, she lived somewhere near Rouen. How do you intend to get there, with an entire army camping around the city?"

"She's here. In the city."

"Tell that to somebody else. Nobody moves around in times like these."

Chateaupers sighed. "Did I just say stubborn? However, she's here. And my men found her name registered in a village near Rouen, as well as the name of her son. The time of birth might be about correct, and it says you disappeared at the age of five and a half, gone missing, presumably dead."

The Phantom snarled, hot, boiling fury building up in his insides. First calling him stubborn repeatedly, then that! "She sold me, that's what she did! And I bet I never was registered anywhere! I had no name at all, Hell consume you!"

"Now, now, my friend." Chateaupers sat quietly through this outburst; one almost had to admire the man. After all, he knew what the Phantom was capable of. "It might just fit. Do you really think a woman would tell anyone she sold her child? And as for a name… The entry speaks of one Marcel Renard."

"Not me." The name meant nothing to him; he had never heard it before. Until he had come to the Opéra Populaire, he had had no name at all, except the one those loathsome gypsies had given him: the Devil's Child.

Hell consume him, he did not even know his mother's name!

"Moreover," Chateaupers continued, "one of those accompanying your mother, a woman about her age, confirmed that you existed, or at least that you had once existed. She gave a description, too."

"Which is just the description everybody who has spent a few months in the city would give to get the attention of the public." Well, not everybody, because not everybody knew what he looked like, but there had been enough reports in the papers, curse their editors forever, and all the journalists, too. And the public, just as well. Most of all.

"They arrived not that long ago."

"Then rumour travels fast." He did not believe that story. He would not believe it. His mother was gone from his life, and gone forever; he did not have any family. "Why would they come here, anyway?"

"Because one of that group – five they are, altogether, all from the same village – has relatives here. War stirred them up, and they thought they might be safer in the city, behind the walls."

"Safer?" What folly was this? "Rouen is a long way west of here! They would be safer where they came from!"

Suddenly Chateaupers smiled. "They're simple village folk, Erik. They don't know much about geography, just enough to find the road to Paris. Because it is said Paris has walls and ramparts and enough to eat."

"I wonder for how long," the Phantom remarked. Until now, there had been no real problems with supply goods, but it was only just October. The winter had not come yet, and who knew how long the siege would last?

"So do I," Chateaupers agreed. "But don't distract me. Listen, Erik, it's not only me. Your mother would like to see you just as well."

What? Never! "And you think I would ever believe that?"

"She told my men so. Apparently she is sorry for what she did earlier on."

"Too late," the Phantom said coldly. "She should have been sorry when I was still a child and needed her. I can stand on my own now. And I don't want to see her." No, he would never agree to meet that woman, his mother or not! It would stir too many painful memories. Of those first five years of his life, he remembered enough of pain, fear and loneliness to know that they had not been happy. How he had wished for her to love him! But she had hated him, and she had rejected him for what he was, for that masked face that made him an outcast. And then she had sold him to the gypsies, sold him like an animal.

Too late for pity. She would never see him again, even if that forced her to die a sinner or whatever it was she believed in. She must be old now, after all those years. Well, hopefully enough years remained to her to make her suffer in her fear for salvation not granted as he had suffered at her hands.

If she had only just raised him like a mother should… Everything could have been different, he thought bitterly. He would still have been a creature and nothing more, but at least there would have been someone who cared for him, someone to give him strength. Maybe he could have lived a more or less normal life, even, once those villagers had gotten used to his face. Well, small chance of that, but still, maybe it could have been possible, if his mother had just shown him the tiniest bit of love.

But no, it would not have been possible. Nobody loved him, and nobody ever would.

"Many years have passed. And it seems she truly regrets her deed."

"What do I care?" But he did, in truth he did. There was a tiny spark of grim satisfaction glowing in his chest.

"Don't you want to know who your father was?"

Hell swallow the man up whole, but he was right! One single question, thrown in quite calmly, and he had him trapped. Oh, curse him, curse him forever for being a damn sly policeman! "Why don't you go and ask her, then?" He did not have to meet her. Chateaupers could do it if he wanted to, but not him. Chateaupers could find out what kind of man his father had been – that was, if his mother knew anything about his father at all.

If that woman really was his mother, that was.

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked quietly and steadily, and suddenly the Phantom felt like throwing something at it.

"She may have… _memories_." Looking up from his glasses he still was toying with, the chief of police cast him a meaningful look, improved a little by a strand of dark hair hanging over his left eye before Chateaupers shook it aside. He had a very characteristic way of shaking his hair out of his face, the Phantom noticed. It had caught his attention before this time already. Whenever he did it, Chateaupers lowered his head first, then tilted it back sharply. Idly wondering why anyone would do so, the Phantom tucked a strand of his own hair behind his ear. It wasn't quite long enough to be worn in a proper ponytail yet; it kept slipping out again at the sides, however diligently he brushed it back.

Only then he realized what Chateaupers had just implied. Apparently he had not been paying enough attention to the man. _Memories._ How clever. This was indeed tempting. After all, he was the only one who could look into people's minds and study their recollections, see what they had once seen through their own eyes.

No, not the only one. Créon had been able to do it just as well, and he had used it on the Phantom often enough. At this memory, the Phantom's teeth clenched. Never again would he allow anyone to catch him off guard like that! And Niobe had manipulated him, too. He was not even sure whom he hated more, Créon or Niobe.

But they were dead. They were all dead. They would not come back. All Lost Ones were gone forever.

Not all. That old man with the horribly distorted face, Bertrand, had fled and this way escaped the Phantom's vengeance. And Aeternus was still alive just as well.

Aeternus. He should have killed him when he had had the chance.

No. Aeternus had helped him.

For reasons of his own, yes. He still should have killed him.

However, too late for that now. He only hoped he would not have to see him again.

"Erik?" Chateaupers was watching him expectantly. Of course, he wanted an answer. And a specific answer. He wanted him to come with him and see that woman who claimed to be his mother.

No. Never.

But then again… he _could_ find out about his father. Maybe his father had been different. Maybe his father had been… someone like him.

Maybe he did not want to know. Not if his father had been someone like Créon.

"Erik, please. For both our sakes."

The Phantom looked at Chateaupers in surprise. Had he just heard him ask for something politely? Normally Chateaupers made demands or gave orders. He never asked someone to do something in that way.

Hell, this must mean a lot to Chateaupers!

And to himself? He did not want to see his mother again. It would only tear open an old wound that had never truly healed, like so many others. By agreeing to accompany Chateaupers, he would make himself vulnerable.

And his mother had never given him a chance. So why should _he_ give _her_ a chance, then?

Because he had wanted her to, back then. Because he had begged her to. Because it would shame her even more if he did. And he wanted her to be ashamed, and how he did! How he hated her!

Just as much as he had loved her once. But she had never returned his affection.

There had been a few moments when she had been more or less kind, though. Unbidden, a few images swirled up in his head. How she had wrapped him in a blanket in the evening when he had curled up on his cot. How she had brushed his hair. It had been the only thing she liked about him, he had once overheard her saying to some friend of hers, his silky hair. How she had given him strangely shaped stones and pieces of bark to play with. How she had let him flick through the few books she had had in her tiny sitting room, as long as he was quiet. How she had placed him on the window seat sometimes in the evening so he could look at the stars…

Biting his lower lip, he recalled those few moments of happiness he remembered together with his mother. If he had been happy in those first years of his life, it had always been when he was alone, but there had been a few times, a few precious times when he had shared a feeling of joy with the one person that had then meant most to him. Well, probably not on her side, but at least on his.

Yes, maybe he would give her a chance. If not for his father's sake, then maybe for the blanket and the stones and the stars. "Agreed," he said.

"Excellent." Even without his talents at mind-reading, he could feel Chateaupers's relief clearly. It really must mean a lot to him…

"Oh, and Gérard…" He grinned again as he said it, because somehow it amused him. "You have completely forgotten about Delannay."

"Blimey, Erik, you're right." At once Chateaupers's features shifted into what might be called a grin as well, for lack of a better expression, yet they grew stony again swiftly enough. "It's essential I find out."

Usually Chateaupers's voice betrayed nothing, but now… had it just been a hint of strain? "Have you had any difficulties with him?"

Chateaupers's mouth went thin. "My days at the headquarters are numbered."

"So they're substituting you, after all?" They had expected it all along, of course; even though Chateaupers had never been interested in society and its conventions, he was a nobleman, after all, and he had served in the same post under the emperor already. That the men of the Commune did not trust him was clear enough, yet it was not easy to find another to do his work, especially since half the high-ranking officers would have to be replaced in this case. Chateaupers's men were known to be loyal.

"I don't know when, but they're going to." Chateaupers sighed. The way from losing his post to appearing on one of the Communards' death lists was not a far one, the Phantom knew. "I had a visitor yesterday evening, a man by the name of LaCroix."

"LaCroix?" Of course he remembered. He remembered who he was told to remember. "Say the word, and he's a dead man."

Chateaupers gave a curt, grim nod. "So the Marquis de Bracy has had a word with you about him, I presume?"

"Let's put it like that: He's holding me back as yet, but I've understood well enough."

Shaking his head sadly, Chateaupers suddenly appeared a lot less energetic than he normally did, and at once the grey strands at his temples seemed more obvious than ever. "What times are those we live in, where we have to call for murder to save ourselves?"

"That's what Maurice said. Well, something along that line, at least." The Phantom shrugged. "It's kill or be killed, and you know it as well as I do."

"I wish we had been born into happier times."

"We can't choose."

"I know."

"The world is changing."

Chateaupers looked at his hands on the tabletop gloomily, his fingers spread out. "Yes, I'm afraid it is."

Hooking his thumbs into his belt, the Phantom wondered why precisely he had said this. Somehow it had just come to him, just like that. And maybe it really was.

And what was a lot worse, this time he did not have just his own darkness to retreat into. This time, the world was at war, and the Opéra Populaire was part of it.

This time, the Phantom himself was part of it. The Phantom was at war with the world.


	15. BOOK THREE: Feeling the Night

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Early update this time. Bea persuaded me with a nice picture of Christine. ;)_

_Pertie: You're lucky, I deem it necessary… eventually. ;) As for Meg, you're clearly jealous – I bet you want a Phantom toy too. lol! I must confess I myself forget details from the first part at times and then have to look them up again – like which line exactly which of the Lost Ones gets in which chapter and similar stuff. This means I regularly re-read it, or the most important passages, at least, and there's Bea's fine translation, too, with which I try to keep up best as I can. Yes, it's indeed a bit long – 255 pages in Arial 12 pt. ;) Take your time. :)_

_Bea: Indeed he knows what he's doing. Perhaps he's grown a bit impertinent, that's all. ;-) pats your head awkwardly Now, now, don't cry. There's a good girl… Would you like to play with Erik? (That always cheers you up, doesn't it?) gg I'm not telling you who his father was, though I finished the chapter in question only yesterday. :P The same goes for the family name. g_

**Book Three: Feeling the Night**

**I. This Fate which condemns me  
II. Say the Word  
III. My first unfeeling Scrap of Clothing  
IV. Seething Shadows**

_The true darkness is not just the absence of the light. What we see when the fires are extinguished is but a distant memory of the reign of darkness that once was, and of the Shadow that still lies beyond the Walls of the World, barred out by the Gates of Night. Those memories lurk at the core of the shadows in dark places, and wherever the light has gone dim they creep, silently and secretly. But the true darkness rests in our hearts, and it rules our doubts and fears. It is the source of wrath and hatred, and the cause of suffering. Nothing but a small seed it may seem, planted into every man's breast. Yet if you feed it, it will grow.  
_–The Book of Lore

_Desire will lure  
Power will blind  
Hatred will claim  
Shadow will bind  
_–From the Prophecy of the Shadow


	16. I This Fate which condemns me

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Listen folks, I know exactly there's a great lot of you lurking. After all, I've got a hit counter. You know, you can accelerate me a great deal by dropping a line. Need any more hints?_

_Pertie: Sorry. I like teasing people. ;) You want to know about the translation? Well, Bea translated most of KotC into Italian, and it's a really good translation, I'm reading it regularly. If you want to take a look, check out (well, this is supposed to be an URL, but the site edits them out, so I'll try my best to trick it…) gerrybutler dot forumfree dot net, then check the sub-forum called Racconti (which means stories) and look for a thread entitled The King of the Catacombs. On that note, thanks for that one review, too._

_The Musician of the Night: No, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving. I never did, so I don't miss it. ;)_

_Bea: "Seething Shadows" is taking from Masquerade: Masquerade / Seething shadows breathing lies / Masquerade / You can fool any friend who ever knew you… Got it:) And for the compliment about the title you can have some more fun with my Erik. g_

**I. This Fate which condemns me**

_Blood for blood._ _Nought for nought._

He did not know the true meaning of this, but it seemed to fit. Vengeance. Retaliation. Blood! Baring his teeth, he snarled at the darkness beyond the water.

_Blood for blood._ _Nought for nought._

They had brought the man away just now. He had worked with the carpenters, a quiet, decent fellow who had never drawn anyone's attention. Until yesterday, when he had dared to declare openly that the reign of the Commune was a reign of terror. A few hours later, he had been dead.

May Hell consume Michel Delannay! May Satan hang him by his entrails! There was only one who terrorized this Opera House, and this was the Phantom! Never, not as long as he lived, would he suffer anyone to do anything of that kind in his own Opera House.

It was quite easy, really: Delannay had had one of his men killed, so he would kill one of Delannay's. No, more than one. After all, there was enough of that filth around, skulking in the upper corridors where Delannay now resided, sometimes sneaking up to where the girls lived. Until now, that dirty rabble had always been chased away, but they would come again, no doubt of it. And they did not dare to go anywhere at night, for fear of the Opera Ghost, but that did not mean that they would fear him forever. Not if he didn't reveal himself to remind them.

At least they were brighter than Delannay in that aspect. The man apparently still thought he was nothing but a fable to scare ballet rats.

But, damn him, he had a stubborn mind, a strong will. The Phantom had been able to manipulate his vision, and he had even been able to pull off that little trick with Claire reaching right through his stomach, but the foul intruder had been resisting. It had not been as easy as he had thought.

But it would become easier. Once Delannay was frightened enough, it surely would.

Reaching out with his mental feelers, the Phantom quickly checked whether the others were asleep already. Yes, Meg was sleeping quietly, Raoul was a little restless still, but pretty drowsy, and Christine, his beloved Christine… widely awake. _Damn_. How could he do what he intended to do when she was practically witnessing it? She would feel it. She would feel every bit of it. Every accursed drop of blood.

Dropping the length of rope he had just picked up onto the carpet carelessly, he sat down at the organ again. Maybe a little music would calm her? Gently he picked a few notes, keeping his mind open for any changes of feeling coming through the bond. Yes, she was listening. She was indeed listening, and probably smiling while she wrapped herself in his robe he had spread over her… and while she huddled closer against Raoul. The music became dissonant all by itself, and the Phantom almost winced at it, as well as at the image in his head. He willed himself to continue, as calmingly as he had played before. Otherwise she would get up and see what was wrong with him, and he could not let her. Not now. Usually he appreciated her company more than anyone else's, especially at those moments when she slipped onto the bench beside him, but not this time. Or else she would realize what he was going to do. After all, he was dressed all in black and girded with a set of three daggers, his trophies of past deadly hunts, and he already wore his archer's gloves, the fingerless one made of soft leather on the right hand and the rougher, padded one almost up to the elbow which covered the whole hand on the left one. Christine knew them, and she would see him right through. Why would he wear them to play the organ? Especially the left one was not exactly practical for that purpose. It was obvious, totally obvious.

Moreover, his quiver lay right on top of the organ, bristling with arrows, and if that was not evidence enough, a spare bowstring was lying across a pile of notepaper beside it.

So much for secrecy.

The Phantom forced himself to concentrate on what he was playing. He was improvising on a melody from Chalumeau's _Hannibal_ currently, the very same opera in which Christine had given her celebrated debut last year. It was a simple melody, utterly unoriginal, to say it a bit nastily, as was all of Chalumeau's work really – just like Auber's and Meyerbeer's and all that – and carrying it on while altering it was easy enough, it did not need much attention… yet if he did not take care, it changed. If he did not concentrate, it grew dark, dark and menacing, like a shadow slowly creeping over the land, swallowing all light, slowly, steadily creeping ahead… the shadow of war… Night was falling swiftly, and the shadows crept… and darkness reigned, darkness and death… darkness…

Trying hard to imagine a wide meadow under the sun, he changed the tune, and there was light again… rays of sunlight… a tender breath of wind, caressing the high grass… a lake in some distance, glittering in the sun… a sailboat on the lake, a silver boat with sails of white…

But there were clouds, too, grey clouds in the west, and the sun sank into them, bathing them in brilliant red… red as blood they were in the glory of the sun's fiery death…

Death and glory. Glory and death.

The music had long ceased to resemble anything of Chalumeau's at the slightest.

And the storm was coming… the storm… and the night…

Oh, curse it all! He just could not concentrate. Whatever he played, he got carried away. Whatever he played, it all led to darkness.

Whatever he did, it all led to darkness.

The night was above him and around him and inside him.

But at least Christine was asleep now. She did not sleep as quietly as the others, but sleep she did, and for now, this would have to do. Ending the music with a last low, gentle note, the Phantom rose to his feet quietly and snatched up the quiver from the organ, hooking it onto one of the dagger belts. Then he tucked the spare bowstring into another one, picked up the length of rope from the floor and his unstrung bow with another bowstring dangling from it from the table holding the stage model. Then, with a last glance back at his quiet home, he headed out through the side entrance, off into the darkness.

His eyes got used to the gloom soon enough; he could see where others were practically blind. Moreover, he felt what was ahead, too, he felt the gentle pulsing of life above him, the presence of many, many men and women at the Opera House. And closer to him, like tiny pinpoints of light, rats flitted about in the corners, ducking into their holes as he came.

Darkness was all around him, but he did not fear it. For the deepest darkness was inside his heart.

And this sounded so perfectly _good_… in a morbid, morbid way. The Phantom smirked to himself.

Christine was restless, he felt, and maybe it would have helped her if he had stayed nearby, but he had to finish this. He had to do it as long as the night was still young. It just was the best time for hunting, so early that there was not only Delannay's night watch around, but also a handful of others, and most of them pretty drunk, too. They would be easy prey.

As he ascended the broad, winding staircase which led up to the inhabited part of the Opera House, he was careful to avoid certain landings. After all, he knew only too well where his own traps were hidden, and ever since Delannay had come here – a week ago it was now, a nasty, foul week with filthy louts poking their noses into the opera people's business – they were set, awaiting unwary feet. Until now, nobody had come, but they were going to. He knew they were. He expected them any day now.

And they would not find him unprepared.

Silently he made his way through deserted corridors at the ground floor, taking a turn into the public area, past the entrances to the now dark auditorium and out into the shadowy hall, the marble staircases gleaming eerily in the moonlight. Leaning against a pillar, he readied his bow. Above him, the fleck of light in his head was so clear that he did not need to see the man standing guard with his own eyes. He could feel him well enough. Picking an arrow from the quiver, he first tested the shaft and tip with his thumb, then nocked it with deft fingers. He had made them well enough, he knew it, from the fire-hardened head to the pigeon-feather fletchings, but he could not afford to make any mistakes.

Too bad he had not yet found a way to get metal tips for his arrows. Yet all the same, they served their purpose, and they had proven their deadliness before.

Slinking along the wall as swiftly as possible, he was careful to remain in the shadows. Although he was dressed in black from his mask down to his boots, the man on the gallery above him might still catch a hint of movement.

It seemed that he did, for as the Phantom slipped into the cover of another pillar's shadow, right opposite the one where he had first paused to get ready, he could see the man leaning down over the parapet, scanning the darkness beneath him critically, one hand reaching for his belt, no doubt to draw a weapon…

But the Phantom did not need any more time. After all, his night vision was much better than that nameless Communard guard's, and he was a trained archer. Many nights of secret practice now served their purpose. Drawing the string to his cheek swiftly, he waited just a tiny moment before he loosed the arrow.

There was a dry, thudding sound as the arrow met its target, and then a half-strangled gurgle from above as the fleck of light in the Phantom's head trembled. The man swayed, a pistol falling from his hand uselessly and clattering onto the stone floor, his rough, crude features twisted into a grimace of shock as well as pain, and then he keeled forward and fell down over the balustrade, landing on the ground below with a dull, heavy sound as the fleck of light exploded, shattered into tiny splashes. At first he twitched slightly, then he lay still, stretched out on his back, but with one arm bent at a strange angle. And there was darkness.

Dead, then. The fall had killed him. A broken neck, probably, or something similar. Of course, the arrow, still sticking out of the man's chest, would have been lethal enough in itself, but the Phantom knew from experience that even a shot directly through the heart did not kill a man immediately. From what Maurice de Bracy had told him, and from what he had read himself, sending an arrow through a man's eye was the best way to ascertain instant death, yet the arrow had to penetrate a layer of bone for that before it entered the brain, and this just would not work without metal arrowheads.

Raoul's revolver would make things easier, too, but it was such a crude weapon.

However, there were other methods of killing quickly, and very efficient ones…

There were voices upstairs now, coming from where the managers' office had once been. So Delannay's men were warier than he had expected them to be. They must have heard either the pistol dropping or their comrade's fall, or perhaps both. Whatever it was, they were coming now. Up on the side of the gallery where the guard had stood until a moment ago, there was light suddenly, and the Phantom receded deeper into the shadows, already reaching for another arrow, tense like a predator ready to pounce.

They thought they were hunting him, but they were the prey…

There they were. He could not see them directly, because he was hidden behind a pillar again, but he could feel them, three men up at the balustrades, and he could hear their excited whispers. His sharp ears caught enough words to know that they had interpreted the situation correctly, though one of the men seemed to favour the theory of a simple accident. Had that one not seen the feathered shaft sticking out of his companion's chest?

Then they retreated, which was a clever decision. After all, they did not know where the one they were looking for lurked. And then… Yes, exactly. Just as it was to be expected, they split up. One came down one side of the staircase, the other hastened towards the other, while the third, no doubt with a rifle ready, remained a little behind the balustrade to cover their backs.

Yet there was a fourth, and he was coming closer silently and swiftly, and from the main entrance. It seemed that they were a lot more watchful than the Phantom had expected. Four of them, and certainly all of them armed… Careful now.

As he raised his bow once again, his heart was pumping tongues of fire through his body. The thrill of the hunt… And deep down inside him, there was an ancient, a feral voice calling for blood. The monster inside him had woken once again, its nostrils quivering, its flanks vibrating with harsh, fast breathing, its fangs bared…

He moved automatically, as if replaying something he had done so often that it did not require any conscious thought anymore. Stepping out and dropping onto one knee in the very same motion, he loosed the arrow as soon as he caught sight of the shape in the twilight of the entrance, then twisted around without shifting his feet, so that he found himself facing the opposite direction, and already his fingers were nocking the next arrow, already he was bending the bow, already the arrow was speeding towards its next target, the men's screams mingling into one cry of terror and pain, as he leapt up into a standing position again lightly and sought cover behind the next pillar with a swift stride. Behind him, a bullet whistled past and beat its way into the marble wall.

Damn the man! He had no right to damage his Opera House!

And what, he suddenly thought as he gulped down a mouthful of air into his empty-seeming lungs, what in the name of Satan had he just done there? Where had that come from? From what he felt nearby, the trick had worked, because two of the remaining four points shining inside his head were dimming, liquid light pouring out into consuming blackness. But how, Hell devour him forever, how?

He could hear their gasps and yells and curses, and two more sharp barks of either pistols or rifles, he was not sure. This was not over yet! Already one was coming towards him, towards his hideout…

As he reached out with his mind, the twilight around him seemed to fill him and to drown out the lanterns and the dim sheen from the gas lamp above as it surged through his veins. The night was _his_ time, _his_ time alone.

It was a simple mind, utterly defenceless. Effortlessly he reached through its outlying layers, passing through thoughts and feelings like through clouds of thin mist, and down past the chasm of recollections, down to the very core of the man's mind, where life itself pulsed like a stream, a stream of molten light. Imagining to grasp the shining cord firmly, he pictured a rope hooked onto something, something that would give way if he pulled hard enough… and then he yanked it out, and the light faded to blackness.

Life was such a tender thing, and so unprotected. Humans were so very vulnerable.

Maybe this was what made them precious things, he suddenly thought. Well, some of them. Only some of them. The rest could burn in Hell for all he cared.

Four down. One to go. It was so incredibly easy. They just were no worthy adversaries. Stepping out from behind the pillar lazily, he made sure to take hold of the remaining man's conscious thoughts before he confronted him fully. As he stood facing him, the rifle dropped from the guard's limp hand. So easy, so incredibly easy… The Phantom could not truly have explained how he controlled a mind, yet it seemed simple to him, a natural thing. He located his target, and then he just reached out and manipulated it as much as he wanted. Now, eye to eye with the man in question, it was even easier. The most direct access to the soul was through the eyes, it was said.

Yes, but who said it? Where had he heard that? He never had, or had he? Was he imagining things?

To Hell with it, if I weren't mad already, I'd think I'd surely be heading in that direction.

It almost made him laugh out loud.

"So you're real," the man said. He spoke flatly, surprisingly calmly, though the Phantom could feel his fear, and his victim's racing heartbeat that made a vein at his temple throb thrilled him.

Of course, the white mask. Everybody knew the white mask, it seemed. "I guess I am." Any memorable last words, perhaps? Curse it all, currently the world was so oddly amusing.

"And you're going to kill me." It was not a question.

"Yes." The answer was quite unnecessary.

"Why?"

"They say that in death all questions are answered."

The man swallowed visibly, and his fear was like an avalanche threatening to carry him away into oblivion, but still he stood his ground. "If there is anything after death."

So this was what he truly feared, the Phantom realized. What everybody feared, probably. This one was a mercenary and unafraid of pain. He feared the unknown. "There is," the Phantom said gently, although he had not intended to speak any more unnecessary words. "There is light beyond the shadow. As your light goes out, you find yourself in darkness, but there is another light, just out of sight, so much brighter than your own, and you are carried towards it, the brightest of fires…" At once his voice failed at the power of the memory overwhelming him. He had seen it himself, the moment Jean Hulot had died. The moment he had failed to safe his follower. He had seen him die, and he had followed him out into the starless vastness, and towards a fire so bright it was beyond words to describe – And then Christine had called him back into the world of the living… His beloved. She was the sole reason why he lived.

The man was staring at him, he noticed, and it did not surprise him. Such a common face, such unintelligent eyes… Why was he talking to a nobody like that? Why not just kill him and be done with it? "You're going to see for yourself," he said, already searching his way downwards into that utterly unremarkable mind…

"Why?" The man's voice was still flat, but now it sounded pressed, too. "Who gave you the power to decide whether a man lives or dies?"

"Who gave it to Delannay?" the Phantom replied coldly. This was not about giving power. This was about taking it. And in the end, it belonged to the strongest.

In the end, the Phantom would outlast this whole accursed world, with the night's shadows seething in his veins.

"Well, then. Make it swift."

As if we're discussing business, the Phantom thought. As if losing his life were business to that man. Well, he was a mercenary, so it was, in a way. Yes, one might consider it so. But all the same… what kind of life was that?

And at once he felt a small twinge of pity for a man who seemed to be not so much better off than he was. "It's a more pleasant place than this one," he said harshly, unwilling to admit what he was feeling. "Trust me." And then he gripped the cord of light and severed it, and the figure before him folded up neatly as its light of life went out.

Darkness. Darkness all around him. There was nobody left alive here now.

And darkness inside him, too.

And far away, Christine was sleeping peacefully at last. At the moment, he felt as if there were worlds between them – and it was good that there were. How could he ever approach her with his blood-stained hands? Her, the purest of creatures? At once he wished he could sever their connection so the taint on him would never touch her.

He was nothing but a murderer, a murderer lurking in the shadows.

_Who gave you the power to decide whether a man lives or dies?_ That mercenary had been right, curse him, so perfectly right! Why did the lowliest of creatures judge those who walked under the light?

Because he was more than them, he thought, glaring out into the shadows defiantly. He was more.

But all the same, he was nothing. Nothing at all.

But he had the power to decide. The power had been given to him, by whatever cruel stroke of fate. He had been condemned to have that power.

Fate, eh? You're no better than Créon.

Créon! Never Créon! When had he ever claimed the right to change and control another's fate, like Créon had?

All the time, really. All the time.

He had been condemned, yes. But with every new murder, he was condemning himself as well, over and over again.

Christine, forgive me, if you ever can. I'm doomed, and I can't escape.

And soon I will be dead, too. Soon I will join the legion of men I sent into the shadows before me.

How many were those, his victims? He did not know; he had not counted. The first, his keeper, a filthy gypsy. The second, a stagehand who had molested Claire Giry. The third, an uncouth drunkard who had tried to ambush him in the street at night. The fourth, a dirty, stinking homeless man who had been unlucky enough to cross his path on a particularly foul day. The fifth, a tavern brawler who had called an insult at him. The sixth… The list was long, far too long. True, all his early victims had been filthy drunkards, and criminals mostly, but all the same, sometimes he had not really had a reason to kill them. Sometimes he had just longed to see that wondrous stream of liquid light flowing out into the darkness. Sometimes they had fallen victim to his hatred of the entire world, and to the satisfaction another death offered.

Or seemed to offer. It had never truly satisfied him. Not even killing Créon and Niobe. Triumph there was, at times, pride perhaps, though most of those kills were nothing to be proud of, but never satisfaction.

But they had never troubled him, either. Claire was right, he valued a man's life for nothing. Or most men's lives, anyway.

Yes, until Hulot had died at his side. That petty little human life, how much it had at once meant to him! And he had not been able to save him. Hulot had died in his service, as the price for his faith in him.

Just like that other man had died today, that nameless carpenter the Communards had murdered.

Maybe it had been even those the Phantom had killed just now.

He hoped it had been them, because otherwise… it would not have been their fault. They would have been innocent.

Innocent? Now he was being ridiculous! For the blessing of Hell, they were Communards, filthy Commune followers, loyal to Delannay! They deserved to die ten times over!

_Who gave you the power to decide whether a man lives or dies?_

Oh, to Hell with you, Communard slime! The power is mine because I took it, and you have no right to question me!

Yet all the same, he felt like an usurper of something that was not his, and his hands felt sullied although there was no single drop of blood on them. Christine would not reproach him, but he would see it in her eyes, her disapproval, her disappointment, her grief.

He felt so lost on an ocean of darkness, with night all around him, and inside him, too, condemned to search a safe haven forever, and never to find it, not in all of eternity…

A fallen angel, and far from Heaven…

Because a fallen angel will never be redeemed, not in all of eternity.

No, damn it, he was no angel!

And there was no time for this. After all, he was not done here yet.

Crossing the room, he picked up the length of rope from where he had discarded it when he had first readied his bow. He would need four more of these…

Quietly and efficiently, the Phantom set to work.


	17. II Say the Word

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for a bit more feedback… though I know exactly there's a whole lot more of lurkers (yes, Polly, I'm talking about you pokes tongue out)… Anyway, thanks to those who reviewed._

_Bea: Yeah, free publicity… ;) Don't call my Erik merciful, he'll snarl (which would be a pity since you've got him purring at the moment g). Yes, I like him best in his dark moments just as well. Why does he hate the Communards so much? Well, because they infiltrated his Opera House, obviously. And because he detests the rabble. He does not care much about who they are, not when they are first threatening Christine and the little fop (and he's the only one who is allowed to threaten the little fop, remember?), then appear at the Opéra Populaire and think they're in charge. Lethal mistakes, both of them. ;)_

_Pertie: Well, he's going to show the nasty intruders whose Opera House this is. And he's taking revenge for that one stage carpenter – since he works there, he's his creature, and nobody's interfering with his creatures._

_Morleigh: Hello, and welcome. :) No, I couldn't have the Phantom simpering, he'd annoy me if he did. ;) As for Christine getting dirty (yummy! Ahem… g)… well, this is Erik's point of view, and for him she is the purest of beings, a true angel. She doesn't see herself so, of course. There hasn't been much of her point of view until now, but maybe your opinion will change once there's a bit more (Book Five will change your opinion, at the latest… g). And she hasn't been too "pure" during _The King of the Catacombs _already, so don't worry. ;-)_

_jtbwriter: Hello lurker. :D Thanks for showing up. ;) Well, I'm trying to make my characters "dynamic"; after all, they can't go through all I'm sending them through without developing, and they're bound to influence each other. Now what, you asked? Now the update comes earlier than expected. ;)_

-.-.-

**II. Say the Word**

As Gérard de Chateaupers took his seat, he felt as if a heavy burden had just been dropped onto his shoulders. Just as he had feared, LaCroix had been to see him again, and the unspoken, but well-hinted threats had been renewed. Only that this time there had been something more, an assignment from Delannay himself on which Chateaupers had spent much thought already, yet he had not come to a decision until now. So Delannay wanted the cellars of the Opéra Populaire turned into a prison? And the lowest levels, preferably? This might become a major problem.

He needed to consult with Erik, he really needed to! But when he had left his office the day before, he had been under the strong suspicion that someone was following him, so he had refrained from heading over to the Opera House. At least he had been able to have a word with Maurice de Bracy in private, and Bracy had carried the message safely to Erik, no doubt, but all the same… he was worried, and he did not like the feeling of having no answer to a question he had been asked a day ago already. He did not like it at all.

At least he would see Erik tomorrow morning. He could not leave the house anymore without an utterly inconspicuous destination, it seemed, but Erik could always come to him. Erik was stealthy. If anyone could slip into his house unnoticed by Delannay's spies, Erik could.

Erik was perhaps the most dangerous man on earth.

Despite himself, Chateaupers smiled at that.

Vincent de Chagny was watching him closely, he realized, and he seemed somewhat… surprised. Of course, what must his old friend be thinking – him smiling at nothing at all, and in this situation! Chateaupers winked at him encouragingly, which seemed to unsettle the poor vicomte even more. Oh, Vincent… always so worried about everything, and so easy to confuse!

At his friend's side, Fabienne de Chagny was resolutely straightening the folds of her dress. Vincent's wife was resolute in everything she did; one could tell from the stern expression on her face, an expression which only seemed to soften when regarding young Christine Daaé, her son's fiancé. At first she had objected to her son's choice, Chateaupers knew, but once she had come to know the girl closer, she had taken to her considerably. Chateaupers suspected that she favoured Mademoiselle Daaé over husband and son.

Which was not surprising at all, really. The girl possessed a natural charm that was quite dazzling, while at the same time she seemed so simple, so modest. A true jewel, that girl.

Erik was completely enthralled by her; it was common knowledge.

And the Chagny boy just as well. One could see from the looks he threw her that he was utterly enchanted. It would be a happy marriage, Chateaupers assumed. Unlike many other young couples, those two loved each other dearly.

And the boy was just like his father. Chateaupers could practically imagine him in Vincent's place, grey-haired already, perhaps with a moustache like his father, but still smiling at his wife.

Yet Mademoiselle Daaé would not become like the vicomtesse. It was highly unlikely. The vicomtesse had been like that in her youth already, always ordering people around, including her husband. Sometimes he seriously wondered how Vincent put up with her. She had a kind heart, true, and she was intelligent and well educated, and she would stand by her husband's side whatever was going to occur, but all the same, she just pushed him around too much.

Well, one had to admit that Vincent allowed himself to be pushed around. He was simply too good-natured.

Just like his son. Maybe the boy's fiancée did not dominate young Raoul, but little Mademoiselle Giry teased him quite enough, it seemed, while Erik did the pushing.

All the same, the Chagny family was a perfectly lovable family, and Chateaupers was ready to keep them under his roof with no regard to his own life. If the Communards wanted him dead, they would find just any excuse for that, no matter what he did. He would not forsake his friends because of them.

The door creaked softly as Maurice de Bracy slipped in, still in his rough black coat, but with his broad-brimmed hat under his arm. As usual, his pet ferret was perching on his shoulder. Behind him came another man, clearly older and of a rather massy build, his greying dark hair slightly tousled by the cold October wind. While Bracy greeted the assembled with a curt nod, the other man bowed politely. After all, despite his regular errands with the police, Robert Millet was Chateaupers's personal butler and knew how to behave.

Chateaupers returned the nod. This was no time for formalities. "Be seated," he said. "You too, Millet. Just take that chair over there."

They did as they were told, Millet with another bow, while Bracy just let himself fall into the armchair that was not occupied yet. Immediately his ferret climbed down his arm and started nibbling his hat, which did not seem to disturb him at the least. Fabienne de Chagny raised her eyebrows at him meaningfully, but he only grinned at her and inclined his head in a mock little greeting. Maurice de Bracy had never been one who bothered much with formalities.

"I have breaking news for you," Chateaupers began before Millet had settled down completely. They had waited long enough, after all. "Even as we speak, Gambetta is meeting the enemy in battle."

"Ah, something new," Bracy remarked, not looking at anyone, but at his ferret, who had now climbed into the hat and curled up there. "The Germans will love him for it, I bet. They must have gotten pretty bored with us already."

"Don't try to be witty," Fabienne de Chagny snapped. "The situation is too serious."

"I beg your pardon, madame. I'm merely stating a fact."

"I doubt he will be very successful, though," Vincent put in while his wife glowered at Bracy, who completely failed to look intimidated.

"No," Chateaupers agreed, throwing Bracy a sharp glance. No need for such remarks, though Chateaupers himself did not mind them much. "He will prove to be nothing but a distraction, I'm afraid. Especially since I seriously doubt his men have much morale left. The same goes for him, by the way," he added, thoughtlessly twirling his glasses between his fingers as he did so often. "He's trying to free a city held by his political enemies. Gambetta has a contingent in the west, as far as I know, but having it march on Paris will take some time still. Once they are here, he might even stand a chance – if Metz holds that long, that is."

Vincent raised his eyebrows. "Metz?"

"The fall of Metz will at once free yet another German army. While some more are approaching the Loire already, don't forget them."

"Yes, I know that." The vicomte waved it away with a motion of his hand that was more performed by the fingers than the hand itself, a gesture peculiar of him. "But do you think they won't be able to hold the city?"

Chateaupers sighed. "I do."

"That leaves only one city still holding out," the vicomtesse stated.

Her husband nodded. "Paris. But for how long?"

"Supplies are being rationed already," Millet reported, with a small bow of his head as if apologizing for speaking up without being asked. "Worries have been voiced as for whether we can outlast the winter."

"Yet the public spirits are still high," Bracy added. "They believe the city will never be taken. The siege makes them unwilling to shake off the Commune, though. As long as there's a threat from outside, they will not fight the oppression from within."

Once again, Chateaupers congratulated himself on picking Maurice de Bracy as his personal assistant. The man saw the problems straight away, and he could sum them up in short, precise words. "Exactly."

"So we must get rid of the Prussian threat first, you mean?" the vicomtesse asked, her tone as if speaking of getting rid of a bothersome servant or a similar problem.

"In theory, yes." But this was where the real problems began. "Yet we must take into consideration that the army of Prussia is probably the best in the world currently. Let's face it: Despite what the emperor used to claim, France entered this war utterly unprepared and with the most exceptional display of self-overestimation."

"They may be good, yes," the vicomtesse admitted, "but not invincible. Winter will not hurt only us."

"I'm afraid it will hurt us more," Chateaupers replied. "They have come prepared. They have been expecting a siege, and they have the resources to lay siege to Paris for a year or more, I presume. They are not only good, they are _too_ good. Remember Königgrätz, four years ago? They did not simply defeat the Austrians. They _destroyed_ them. And suffering only minor losses themselves." He exhaled slowly, answering his friend's wife's gaze. It was a simple truth, but an unpleasant one. "I hate to say so, but under the current conditions, we can never defeat Prussia alone, and especially not them and the rest of the German countries combined."

For full six seconds there was heavy silence; Chateaupers counted the ticks of the clock on the mantelpiece. Then Vincent spoke up again. "So we can't win this war alone."

"Allies," his wife agreed. "Are there no allies?"

Chateaupers shook his head. "None I know of."

"But the Austrians must hate Prussia," Vincent argued.

"More than they fear the Russians?" Bracy threw in. "They're waiting at their border, forcing them to remain neutral. Well, a treaty broken can upset a former ally pretty much, especially if that ally in question saved the other country from revolution."

The vicomtesse frowned. "That was back in 1848."

"The revolution, yes. The war in question was a little later on, and Austria refused to come to Russia's aid. The Russians do not forget that easily, madame."

"Moreover," Chateaupers added, "they have enough problems of their own, what with all those nations demanding more rights and so on."

"Any chance to get help from England?" Vincent suggested, though rather half-heartedly.

"_England_?" His wife snorted derisively, probably more because Bracy had been right than because she found her husband's remark stupid. "Saving _France_? Never."

By now they must have seen the situation. "So this is the choice we have," Chateaupers summed it up. "To endure an endless siege, until starvation, and under the reign of the Commune. As long as the siege is going on, an uprising is out of question. And winter is not far now. Once it falls, it falls swiftly. And it will fall hard, after that hot summer. The harvest has not been brought in completely; many crops have been lost. How long until the people of Paris are dying? The children will be first, and the old and the ill. But then the rest, the women, then even the strongest of men. And by the time they realize it is time to throw off the oppressors from within and without, it will be too late. A starving man cannot wield a sword. And those who do not starve will be diminished by the reign of the Commune. The death toll is mounting fast; whoever opposes them dies. I've seen the lists, and I've signed them. I have no choice but to sign. If I oppose them, I die. If I give up my post, I die. This is all I can do to work against them, to stay in office as long as possible and save who I still can. But they are watching me already. Delannay's advisor, a Charles LaCroix, has been to see me twice already. It won't be long now until I'm no longer of any use. But until then, we must act. Before it is too late."

During his little speech, Chateaupers had watched Vincent's eyes narrow. "You mentioned a choice, Gérard," he now said. "What is this choice?" And the same question was written in the vicomtesse's face. Millet looked merely concerned and irritated, while Bracy's expression revealed absolutely nothing. Had he seen it coming, perhaps?

So now the time was there, the time to voice what he had been pondering for the first time. "I will be open with you," he began. Yes, because he trusted them. Because they were the people he trusted most, apart from some of his own men still left to him. "The highest priority in order to re-establish justice and peace is to rid ourselves of the Commune regime. And since we cannot do this alone, and since we cannot do this in a besieged city – the city must fall."

There was a sharp intake of breath from the Chagnys as well as from Millet, and even Bracy's eyes narrowed as his dark eyebrows descended abruptly. "This is treason," Fabienne de Chagny said sharply. "I will hear no more of it."

"It's our only hope. And the only hope to save our women and children, who are murdered despite their innocence. It is better to lose a war and regain justice than to lose a war and justice along with it."

"Vincent," the vicomtesse demanded, "say something."

Her husband passed a hand over his eyes. "Yes, but what should I say? You are right, my friend is a traitor, but it makes sense. It makes perfect sense."

"And how, if I may ask?" Bracy interjected. "How is the city to fall? And what about the losses that will come from a battle fought inside the city itself? What about the destruction? True, the Germans will root out the Communards for us. But they will root out our civilians as well."

Had this argument not come, Chateaupers would have been disappointed. "This is why we must wait a little longer yet. But don't get me wrong. We must start negotiations at once, yet the actual action must wait until there will be not much resistance to expect."

"So you counsel us to wait after all?" the vicomtesse inquired.

"No. I counsel you to negotiate now and then to give the signal when the time is ripe, so we avoid as many losses as possible."

"How about your loyalties?" Vincent's voice sounded strangely pressed, as if he were very agitated, and his knuckled were white. "The oaths you have sworn? Can you forget them that easily?"

"I have sworn loyalty to my superiors, but I have sworn to save the city and my country and to protect the weak and the innocent, just as well. When there are two opposing oaths binding a man, he must break one of them. It's as easy as that."

His head inclined to one side, Bracy seemed to be busy watching how his ferret nibbled his fingertips, yet his eyes were still narrowed, and he was clearly thinking about what he had just heard. Where did Maurice de Bracy's loyalty lie? It would be a hard decision for him, but Chateaupers knew what he would choose in the end. Bracy would be with him.

And Vincent? "What will you choose?"

The vicomte and his wife exchanged a glance. "We have to discuss this in private first," Vincent said at last, and at once there was weariness in his voice.

"What do you mean by _negotiations_?" the vicomtesse demanded. "Do you have any hidden allies? Any contacts outside the city?"

At once Chateaupers felt very smug. "Let's say I know a man who can walk past a regiment of guards without them noticing."

Again the Chagnys exchanged a glance, clearly clueless. But Bracy's hard features lit up with understanding. "You're talking about Erik."

"Indeed. Indeed I am." If anyone could find a way out of the city, Erik could.

"Not that masked rogue again!" the vicomtesse groaned. "Would you really trust such a scoundrel with something that important?" As she said so, she shot Bracy what could be considered a rather pointed look.

"I would trust Erik with my life," Chateaupers answered seriously, while Bracy smiled at her amiably, stroking his ferret.

"After that nasty business at the Opera House?"

"Fabienne," Vincent began, one hand on her arm, "our son speaks very highly of him…"

"Hah!" The vicomtesse snorted. "Our son has no idea! And do you remember that little incident at the Baron de Castelot-Barbezac's, when he and the baron's lad _and your own son, my dear,_ set the hedge on fire?"

"Now, now, darling. It was an accident. Roger simply dropped a lantern."

Again the vicomtesse snorted. "Accident? Now how about our garden party in June? When the worthy Monsieur Ghost _and once again your own son_ found it a good idea to try on women's, well, lingerie?"

"Not in the garden, luckily," Vincent said quickly, while Bracy grinned. "Besides, darling, Raoul is your son as well, not only mine, and he is a good boy. And if they want to have a bit of fun, why not let them?"

"With women's lingerie!" It was the third snort in a row.

Vincent shrugged. "Well, there could be worse our boy could have messed with."

"Anyway, that Erik of yours has a bad influence on my boy! And on our little Christine!"

"Darling, please…" Vincent raised his hands in an attempt to calm her, which remained unsuccessful, of course. Once angry about something, Fabienne de Chagny was like a thunderstorm.

"My dear husband, they sleep _in the same bed_! Is that enough for you?"

Vincent frowned, while Bracy was clearly biting his lip to prevent himself from laughing. "Who exactly? Christine and Raoul? Christine and Erik? Raoul and Erik, perhaps?"

"All of them!"

Bracy gave a half-strangled snort and quickly bit his hand, while even stoic Millet grinned.

"Well then, darling, when there's three of them, they'll hardly be able to misbehave with the girl, now can they?" the vicomte reasoned.

"Wouldn't put it past them," the vicomtesse muttered. "Not past that Erik fellow, anyway. What a blessing our girl is so decent." At once she stabbed at her husband with her forefinger. "But there's that other girl, too, so that makes them four. What do you have to say to this?"

"Five," Vincent said brightly. "You forgot about the dog. Only joking," he hurriedly added when his wife turned a murderous glare on him. "Anyway, Meg Giry is decent just as well. And you like her mother, don't you?"

"Yes, I do, but that still doesn't – _Maurice de Bracy, what are you snickering at like an imbecile?_"

"Nothing, madame," Bracy answered innocently.

"Weren't you the one who was at the garden party as well and tried to tie young Roger de Castelot-Barbezac's hands behind his back with a stocking of doubtful origin?"

Somehow Bracy managed to keep a straight face. "No, madame."

"No? I quite distinctly remember you doing it!"

"I never denied it was me, madame. I only mean that the stocking in question wasn't of doubtful origin. I know exactly where it came from."

As the vicomtesse snorted for the fourth time, while Millet was still grinning as discreetly as possible, Chateaupers hastily decided to cut this exchange short. "However, I take it Erik will be here to see me tomorrow. Am I correct?"

"Precisely," Bracy replied, stroking his ferret under the chin, which it seemed to enjoy. "First thing tomorrow morning. He gave me his word to come."

Which was important, since he was to be confronted with his mother. Chateaupers just needed to know who Erik really was, he needed to! That he was more than just human was obvious, but what this Créon had said… Erik refused to believe it, yet Chateaupers somehow tended to. Before he had met Erik, he had not believed in the supernatural. But now, ever since he had encountered him, he did, and at once he was convinced that Nietzsche was right. Erik belonged to a higher race, a better race… a new stage of evolution, perhaps. And Chateaupers needed to know all about him.

Realizing Bracy was still waiting for an answer, he gave his faithful right hand an affirmative nod. "Well done. You're dismissed. Have a glass of brandy before you go."

Rising, Bracy bowed his head. He would return to his office now, no doubt. "Thank you, but I must decline. I don't drink when on duty. If there is anything else you need, you know where to find me. Just say the word, and I'll be there." Replacing the ferret on his shoulder, he gave them all another of his mock little bows before he headed out and closed the door behind him.

_Just say the word…_ Indeed, it was true, all that was necessary was one word from him, and Bracy hurried to do his bidding, with his usual diligence and efficiency.

_Say the word…_ Erik had said just that when he had heard about the LaCroix business, but would he say the same, once Chateaupers told him about the quest he had in store for him? Chateaupers's friends had not asked him about the details much, but he was sure Erik would. And then… would he accept the mission? If not for loyalty to Chateaupers, then maybe because it was a challenge? He was quite ready to kill at one word from the chief of police, yet would he endeavour to take a message behind enemy lines? Chateaupers could only hope he would.

"He may be a good officer," Fabienne de Chagny stated flatly, her eyes still on the door, "but he's a horrible person. And this nasty little animal of his… Have you heard how he calls it? Madame Blanche! I mean, _Madame_! It only shows his contempt for society, if you ask me, and a man who holds such an opinion –"

"Please, darling," her husband interrupted, "we've discussed that before."

She through him a measuring glance. "Not often enough, then."

But Chateaupers did not heed them. _Say the word…_ So much loyalty, and for respect and friendship, not for fear. Blessed was the man who had subordinates and allies like that around him!


	18. III My first unfeeling Scrap of Clothing

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize. There have been plenty of reviews, also from the lurkers, but I could not update any earlier because I actually crashed my own computer and only today managed to fix my internet connection. Well, at least everything is fixed now, but having to format the hard drive did hurt, despite the copies of the most important things.  
Beregond's Girl: Are you the mother of little Bergil, by any chance? No, forget it. Glad to hear it wasn't slashy (I'd hate it if it was), and that the vicomtesse entertained you. Oh, and your review was quite enough to please me, don't worry.  
Pertie: Here's what you've been waiting for… at last.  
jtbwriter: Another Fabienne de Chagny supporter, I see…  
Morleigh: And here's a third. Well, I expected you to, with being a feminist and all. Yes, I take a few liberties, like moving the Commune uprising right into the time of siege for reasons of drama. But the battles mentioned (their dates and sites) are mostly authentic.  
MlleOG: Ah, how well I remember… I do check who's got my stuff on their favourites list, you know. Pleased to meet you "in person". No, the bit about Chateaupers being called Gérard actually is not meant as a joke. There are plenty of insides jokes hidden in this and ist prequel, but I picked Gérard because it was a common name in France at that time, as far as I know.  
The Musician of the Night: You all like cuddly Erik, I suspect. Sadly, I prefer dark Erik. (insert mad cackle here)  
Bea: Yes, I've seen Gladiator twice, but I'm afraid I've forgotten most of it already. Well, to the vicomtesse the question of who crawls under which blankets certainly is a matter of great importance…  
ChristinelovesPhantom: Yes, the background is certainly more complicated than it was in the prequel.  
PhantomsGurl: Never mind, I know you've been busy.  
Polly: You're pEtting the ferret, eh? Instead of pAtting? Well, that was to be expected of you… (snicker, snicker)_

-.-.-

**III. My first unfeeling Scrap of Clothing**

First thing in the morning, Maurice had said. Very well, if Chateaupers insisted… The Phantom did not like going out in daylight, but this seemed to be important to Chateaupers, for whatever crazy reason, so he had agreed to come. It was better if the chief of police did not venture around the Opéra Populaire too much, or else those filthy Communards of Delannay's might start suspecting something, so it was better if the Phantom went to him instead; he had no problem with slipping past the eventual spies, however well they might be hidden.

And to be honest, he did not want his mother to come to his home. It would be too personal.

Due to his skill at feeling all living beings around him, they encountered nobody directly on their way to the chief of police's dwelling, he and Serge and Senta. Actually he had wanted to go alone, yet Gaston and Serge had pressed him to take at least one of them with him. Raoul had wanted to accompany him, too, curse the boy! There was no way he was going to let that silly little fop out of the cellars after what he had done upstairs; the higher levels had been swarming with Communards. Of course, he could slip out through that passage to the stables, but all the same, it was far too dangerous for the boy. Raoul was not setting a foot out today, and that was that.

And Gaston and Serge! He could have strangled them! Hadn't Delannay threatened to kill anyone who went below the first cellar level? And what did they do? He had told them not to, curse the pair of them and their loyalty! He had decidedly forbidden them to come down to the cellars unless it was absolutely necessary!

Well, Gaston had thought it was necessary, of course, and Satan alone knew how he had found out that the Phantom was going to meet Chateaupers. Maurice had told him, most likely. After all, Maurice knew who Gaston served with such ardour.

Anyway, he had not taken him with him. He had sent him to work somewhere utterly inconspicuous, and he had warned him to stay away from stage and auditorium. And as for Serge…

He had wanted to be alone. After all, he was going to see his mother again. He had told no one, not even Christine. Meg had woken again and asked him what Chateaupers wanted as he had at last crawled under his blankets late last night, still feeling blood-sullied even after an extensive cold shower in the unceasing rain outside, but he had only murmured something about some design of Chateaupers's before he had closed his eyes, too tired even for a little snuggle, hoping only that the nightmare would not come back this time – which had been a vain hope, as he should have known. He would talk to Christine after this meeting, he was sure, but he did not plan to let anyone know what Chateaupers had in store for him this time.

Serge, though… This quiet understanding in his silent servant's strangely green eyes… Maybe he was being sentimental, but he had found a slight comfort in him, and he had let Serge come with him. Serge would not talk about what he had seen later on, if he would see anything at all.

And since the dog needed a walk as often as possible, they had taken her along. Trudging by the Phantom's side faithfully, Senta occasionally nudged him with her nose to remind him that she wanted her head patted at regular intervals.

At least the rain had diminished, though not entirely ceased. Yet it might increase again, the Phantom suspected; the sky was dark grey as molten lead. Slippery with water, the cobblestones gleamed in the dim lights of the gas lamps lining the streets. These days, several of them were broken, but were left as they were, from the distance seeming like dark, broken-off fingers looming out of the fog. What an eerie sight, and then again, what strange, simple beauty…

They reached Chateaupers's dwelling without any incidents, and the man the Phantom knew as Millet opened the door for them. While Serge and the dog waited in the living room, the Phantom went on to Chateaupers's office.

Millet followed him, wanting to take his cloak, but the Phantom fended him off. If his mother was to see him again, then she was to see him as he was known and dreaded. Grimacing, he wiped his sleeve over his mask to clean off at least the worst of the moisture.

First thing in the morning, Maurice had said. Well, it was rather early still, shortly past eight o'clock, and still dark outside, though owing largely to the weather, but Chateaupers could hardly have wanted to see him any earlier, couldn't he?

Had they yet discovered what he had done, back at the Opera House? He wondered. When he came back, this was the first thing he was going to find out about.

Chateaupers met him on the corridor already; he must have heard how Millet had admitted them, for the Phantom had made no sound coming up here. "There you are," he said, smiling. The Phantom sensed an air of excitement about him which he found most annoying. Why did Chateaupers care who he was, what did it matter to him? It was none of his business, damn him! "And what a sense of timing you've got! She was only just brought here."

Right on cue, Maurice came out of his superior's study, for once without his dark coat and hat, greeting the Phantom with a lopsided grin, the ferret riding on his shoulder as usual. Another one who knew about this, then.

But what else should he have expected? Maurice had brought him the message already. Maurice knew about most things Chateaupers did.

At once the Phantom was tempted to tell Chateaupers about his newest crime just for distraction, or to say he needed to see the cook with a message from Raoul, or he needed to go to the lavatory, just anything that postponed this meeting, and if only for a little bit. He did not want to see his mother. That particular part of his life was over, and over for good!

But no, he could not retreat now without losing his face.

Oh, curse this all, and most of all his mother!

"Serge is down in the living room," he told Maurice to gain the time he needed to give his clothing a last-minute tug. "If you want someone to talk to, and if Madame Blanche wants to play with Senta…"

Maurice grinned. "Fine. I think she'll like that."

An then he was already being led to the study, only three steps left, only two, oh Hell, he did not want to, and yet it was of no use…

"Mademoiselle Renard, I present your son," Chateaupers said.

At once they stood facing each other, he on the threshold, she inside the room. She was a thin, frail-looking woman, pale and with beady eyes in a wrinkled face, her hair pulled back into a grey bun, someone utterly not noteworthy, someone he would easily pass by on the street without truly noticing her. So much smaller, so much more fragile-seeming than he remembered her! And never before had he realized that her clothing was so simple, just a plain brown linen dress that had definitely seen better days. And so much older she was. She was an old woman now, whereas he was still young, younger than he was supposed to be.

If she really was his mother, that was. He could not quite recall her face.

Gasping, she shied away from him, retreating backwards until the desk prevented her from going any further. "Oh my God…"

"What's the matter?" he asked roughly, remembering to enter so Chateaupers could come in as well and close the door behind him. Curse her, he was masked anyway, so what was she so scared about? Had she perhaps hoped that he would drop dead before he came here, and now her fervent praying had not come true? Did she fear that he would harm her? Yes, he indeed felt like harming her, like making her suffer for what she had done to him back then…

The woman's eyes flickered back and forth between him and Chateaupers, then remained on the chief of police, as if pleading with him to make that apparition that scared her so disappear. "The very image of his father…"

His father. The reason why he had come here at all. He wanted to find out who his father had been. It must have been his father who had passed on all those strange gifts to him, because his mother was just a common village woman, nothing more. There was nothing special about her. Whereas his father… at once he wished he could be meeting _him_ instead of her. Maybe his father would smile at him when he saw him, and stroke his shoulder and call him _my boy_, just as Raoul's father did with his son, and he would sit on the carpet beside his father's armchair with his arms wrapped around his knees, just like Raoul, and gaze into the fire in the chimney and just be happy for a fleeting moment…

Maybe his father was still out there somewhere, waiting for his son to find him. The idea was too beautiful to be true.

His voice sounded harsh in his own ears as he asked, "Who was my father?"

Slowly the old woman's eyes returned to him, and at last they came to rest on his face, and they did not flicker away anymore. There was fear in her gaze, to some extent, but also a sense of wonder, even of admiration, perhaps at her son's elegance. "There was no father," she said simply.

What? Was she trying to fool him? "Talk sense," he snarled, and if not for Chateaupers standing beside him he would have grabbed her by her narrow shoulders and shaken her. "A moment ago you said I looked like him! I don't give a damn if it was just some affair of yours. Who in the name of Satan was he?"

From the corner of his eye he saw how Chateaupers raised a hand as if to place it on his arm to calm him, but he dropped it again before he touched him.

"Affair?" the woman repeated, indignantly. "I never had affairs!"

Had he still been a small child, she would have beaten him, no doubt. The thought made him even more furious. "No, and you just picked me out of the river or something," he sneered. Hell, he longed to tear her head off! "Or I was totally fatherless, the son of a virgin, your own private version of Jesus, eh? Only that it was not some halo-crowned pigeon that visited you, but the devil himself, right?"

Her eyes widened, no doubt with shock at his blasphemy, but he did not care. He was sick of all those lies, so sick!

"Calm down," Chateaupers muttered, but he ignored him. He would not be civil, not for that one person who had been worse than any animal mother, who had hated him so much that she had sold him to the gypsies.

"There was no father," the old woman repeated, after having gotten over her initial shock at his fury. "I can't explain. Suddenly you were just there, and I carried you and gave birth to you." And at once she shuddered slightly. "It frightened me so."

_There was no father._ No, it couldn't be true, it was impossible! But he sensed no lie in the woman opposite him. Hell devour him alive, how could anyone have no father? He would have to crack her mind open, to search for the answer he wanted… but he would give her another chance first, because Chateaupers was watching. "Yet you said I looked like him." It was hard not to roar at her.

"There was… a dream." The old woman lowered her head, and the Phantom caught a feeling of shame without even searching for it. She practically radiated it. "In dreams… _he_ came." Once again she shuddered. "So beautiful, and yet so terrible… and there was fire in his eyes, flames of blue and green… Please, don't ask me any further."

There was an intake of breath from Chateaupers, almost inaudible, but loud enough for the Phantom to hear it. Yet he ignored it. There was a lump, a suffocating lump jammed in his throat. The Devil's Child they had called him. What if they had been right?

No. There was no devil, just as there was no god watching over mankind. There was just fate, a dark, cruel fate.

"But I must ask you to continue, mademoiselle," Chateaupers said softly. "I must ask you to explain."

Once again the old woman's gaze rested on him, as if clinging to him, so she did not have to behold her demon offspring. "You will not believe me."

"I'm quite ready to, I must say." His voice came to the Phantom like through a cloud of fog, as if he were entranced by Créon once again, confused and defenceless. "If you were any other man's mother, I might laugh at you, but it is different with your son. Speak, and I will listen."

Her eyes were still on the chief of police, almost too large for her narrow face, and so frightened, so desperate. "He's not human," she murmured.

Chateaupers nodded. "He's more."

How much the Phantom wished to return to his dark cellars, and not to see anyone for the rest of the day! He had wanted to know who he was, but he did not want to hear this. Not this. He could not believe it. He would not! He was a man like any other, if perhaps gifted with strange talents and abhorrent features, and he had a father like all others. He must have a father!

Why could he not be like anyone else? The lowliest beggar in the street had his place in the world; why not he?

"What is he?" his mother whispered. How many times had she asked herself that question, he suddenly wondered, so many years ago when she had first held the little wretch he had been in her arms?

"If you knew only half of it," Chateaupers replied quietly, "you would be proud."

"No, she would not!" It had burst out of the Phantom before he could stop himself. "She would hate me, like all others! And I'll tell you something: She's right! If _you_ knew, if _you_ had any idea what I did last night… You're a policeman, Gérard! You're not supposed to be on my side! You're supposed to pursue me, to hunt me down, to hate me for what I am! Why don't you?"

"Because it's not that easy," Chateaupers said gently. "If the world were as you see it, a pattern of black and white, then I would. But it's not. It's coloured in shades of grey. Hate you for what you are? But what are you? What are you really? Deep down inside, what are you? Not even you can tell me that."

"I'm a monster," the Phantom muttered. By now, it rolled easily off his tongue. Of course he knew what he was. He had always known.

"No. No indeed." Chateaupers shook his head, and at once he smiled. "Christine told me to make sure to let her know if you ever said that again, because she intends to have Madame Giry box your ears for it."

"Christine does not know what evil dwells in the heart of her Angel. And when I show her, she refuses to see." And how could she ever understand, the purest, the most innocent of beings? She had seen his hatred, his cruelty, his utter darkness, and still she would sometimes stroke his cheek and call him her Angel.

"Christine sees more than you do, my friend. And so do others. Your men love you. They would follow you to the end of the world if you asked them to. Because you were born to be a jewel among pebbles, a lord of mankind. Erik, you can deny it as much as you want, but you are more than just human. You're not an animal. Rather than that, you're a half-god."

"And you sound just like Créon," the Phantom said bitterly. "Lord Keeper of the Gates, yes. Leader of an army, conqueror of the Shadow before he became a traitor, decorated with many a trophy of past battles, all nicely lined up along a belt… Don't let that myth blind you."

"You're legend, Erik."

"Yes, and a dark one."

"Trophies?" the old woman repeated. She spoke very softly, but both the Phantom and Chateaupers fell silent at once. "Amulets, fangs, strands of hair or fur and such? Dangling from some kind of belt?"

The image came unasked for, and the Phantom clenched his teeth, willing it to go away, to go away and be forgotten, but it would not go. A cold hand gripped his heart, and once again he saw Créon before him, his bright eye and his black one boring into his awareness. No. This could not be true. It just could not.

"You've seen that before." Chateaupers's voice sounded strangely pressed, just like the Phantom had heard it before when he was excited. He should have been furious at the chief of police, being excited about something like that, something that was none of his business. But he felt nothing now. Nothing but cold, and emptiness.

"_Him_." This one single word made the walls the Phantom had erected around his world come tumbling down. His hopes, his dreams, his desire to be normal, just like everybody else – all buried under dust and stone.

And from far, far away, a lonely horn played the first few notes from his Requiem he was still working on, once again a Requiem for himself, for himself and all the things he had lost.

"Please, mademoiselle." If possible, Chateaupers's excitement had increased, but the Phantom barely sensed it now, like from very far away, a small, flickering sensation that was utterly unimportant, just like the rest of the world. "I know you won't like to recount it, but we need a closer description. This is extremely important."

Curse you, Créon. Curse you forever.

"It was a belt, or some kind of it, a belt-like leather thing, like a strap, hooked onto the actual belt…" His mother sought for words. "He was wearing a sword on a similar thing, only on the other side, like some kind of loop or something, hooked beneath the belt buckle and with the other end to some metal thing on his belt, about opposite the belt buckle probably…" Her description was helpless, but the Phantom knew exactly what she was describing, anyway. A sword strap worn on the right side, turned into a holder of a line of trophies dangling on leather cords. He had seen it with his own eyes, inside Créon's mind. He had seen himself wearing it.

A cold hand clenched around his heart, just like when the gaze of Créon's Eye of the Shadow had fallen on him for the first time. This could not be true. This just could not be true.

Please, don't let it be true…

But there was some chance Chateaupers did not realize what she was talking about. The chief of police did not really know about that accursed trophy belt, after all. The Phantom had never given him details. Urged by Christine and Raoul to be cooperative – and threatened by Claire Giry to get his ears boxed quite mightily if he annoyed the police and made them hunt him and lock him up – he had mentioned the visions he had had, but he had kept the account as short as possible. Because Chateaupers might actually believe Créon, damn him! Damn both of them! When they had first met, the chief of police had been such a reasonable man; why did he have to get so overexcited over a bunch of lies about a man who was simply different, cast out of society because he was a demon, a creature from Hell?

No, no, not that. Not really. Just an inferior creature, an animal, a monster. Nothing more.

He wanted to tell Chateaupers to stop this, or manipulate him to do so, but although his mind was reeling madly, he felt as if struck dumb, and the cold hand had caught his tongue as well.

"Please," Chateaupers said. "Continue. Who was it you saw?"

"I don't know. He did not say a word." The woman – his mother, curse her, she must be! – shuddered, squaring her narrow shoulders against the advance of an invisible foe. "He looked just like him… my son…" For a moment her eyes flickered over to the Phantom, then they quickly returned to Chateaupers. "He had long hair, too, down to his shoulders, and those eyes, those fiery eyes… I could not look him in the eyes. But his face… he wore no mask, he was perfect…"

Everything I'm not, was it? At once hot fury boiled up in the Phantom's chest, and the cold melted away, vaporized in one fiery breath of his wrath. "And so you took him to bed, eh? Because he had a perfect face? That's all you care about, isn't it, the outer façade, and if it's not perfect, then one does not stand a chance, not even your own son! How much did the gypsies give you when you sold me to them? Surely you asked less than you would have asked for an animal? Because to you I was worth less than an animal, wasn't I? Why didn't you just kill me straight away, right after I was born? You would have saved us both so much trouble!"

"Erik!" Chateaupers had taken his arm, and with the other he was gesturing in what probably was meant to be an assuaging way, but since Chateaupers rarely gestured, and then only very slightly, it looked oddly out of place. "Erik, don't!"

He shook his hand off. Who did he think he was, a dog? Would he tell him to sit and be quiet now, too?

As he stepped forward, his mother shrank away from him even more, her eyes wide with terror, her hands raised protectively, as if expecting a blow. It must have been the same when he had still been a small boy, it occurred to him, only with the roles reversed.

But he would not repay her by doing what she had done. He would not sink that low. "Afraid, are you?" he hissed. "You're lucky, I'm not you. I only want one thing: Look me in the eyes."

"Do it," Chateaupers interjected gently. "He's not going to hurt you." But he threw the Phantom a meaningful look as he said so. "He'll only read your mind."

"He'll –" Gasping, the woman covered her eyes.

If he hadn't been so angry, the Phantom would have laughed out loud. So ridiculous!

"Mademoiselle, he's not going to harm you."

"And I can read your mind through the back of your skull if I feel like it, so I don't care." He could sense her fear, and it made his blood race, but it did not fill him with triumph as much as he had imagined. Not that it mattered. He would have a look into her memories, would peek at that image, that one image he dreaded to see, but he needed to know, because there was still hope it was not true, and then he would withdraw, for the rest of her mind did not interest him in the slightest. And then she was free to go, and if it was to Hell, he did not care, for she would never be seeing him again.

"May the Lord have mercy on you," his mother murmured.

The Phantom snorted. "In your stead, because you did not when I needed you?" Hell, this all was so ridiculous! "Well, there's one more thing I need, but then it's good-bye. Don't give me trouble." But she would not manage to trouble him much, anyway. Even as he spoke, he already dived down through the outer layers of her mind, deep into her awareness… Her name was Marguerite Renard, apparently. He heard it for the first time. And for the last time, for sure. What did it matter to him? Heedless of the other things he could have found out, he sought his way to the tunnel into gentle shadow, the abyss lined with many small lights. Ignoring the upper ones, he allowed himself to float in the emptiness between them, down where they became dimmer. He had worked on navigating through memories since his first attempts, but never with an individual so old. His favourite object of study was Christine, and he taught her to read his own mind in return, though he still had not quite understood how it was she could enter his mind just like he could enter hers. Claire's explanation, that a little bit of his powers had seeped over into her, sounded just as plausible as it was unrealistic, especially since all Christine could was read what was in the Phantom's mind, but not control him, and she could read nobody else. All the same he was teaching her, and he had, though grudgingly, allowed her to try his memories a few times, but then she had just poked at some at random; never had he helped her seek out any specific ones. And her own life had been so short until now… She was just a girl. There was not much accumulated. And since he knew her well, finding his way through her recollections was easy. Yet in a stranger's head, he was a stranger himself.

He nudged one of the lights before him, and before his inner eye appeared a dim vision, faces he did not know, faces that were of no use to him. It was the same with another, and with the next one he tried. Maybe he should go further down still? Doing so, he touched another memory… and found something he recognized. A small boy dressed in rags, cowering in a corner, his face hidden in his arms.

Me.

Even as he thought so, the boy raised his head, and he wore no mask. What in the name of consuming Hellfire – is that really me? Can this be… the scars… so much sharper, so much rawer, like fresh burns… did they really… _heal_? For healed they had, if he had ever looked like this. Healed they had. They were still there, of course, but paler, less raw and rough…

Was there any hope they would fade completely?

Probably not, he thought bitterly. He was meant to be marked, meant to be scarred forever.

Turning away, he searched the tunnel's walls a little lower down, catching a few glimpses of himself as often as not, but never again unmasked, only with what looked like a piece cut out of a sack over his head. According to his mother, the first piece of clothing she had provided for him. Yet he did not linger. This period of his life was past, and he was glad it was. It would not come back, and he would not make it better by looking at it.

Lower down still, he found his mother's memories of a hateful pregnancy, but for once he understood. The shame it must have been, bearing an illegitimate child without even knowing who the father was…

And then, when it had been born, instead of being a pretty boy, it had turned out to be such a monster.

Would he have raised that infant, had he been in her place?

Of course, if he had a child of his own now, he would love and cherish it, no matter what its features were like. If that boy in his mother's memories were his son instead of himself, he would offer him all his mother had never given him.

But in her place, as a normal, respectable woman…

No, he did not want to think about it.

And there it was, the memory he was looking for. He knew those eyes, that pair of bluish-green eyes, and the dire look in them. For a moment he wondered whether he should truly enter that memory to experience it like his mother once had, but then decided against it. There were things about this moment he did not want to know any closer.

Nudging the memory in question a little harder, he forced it to unravel before him like a picture. Yes, that was him, just as Créon had shown him, Hell devour that son of a… whatever, there was no insult bad enough for Créon. Him, or whoever it was. The Keeper of the Gates, maybe, if that one was real at all and not just a fable. Wraith, Aeternus had said, Wraith they had called him…

Well, if this is me after all, then at least I can live with Wraith.

His own resignation even failed to surprise him. He should rage at what he had found. He should fight. He should refuse to believe it. But he just saw it, and that was all.

Maybe he was tired of all the raging and fighting.

All that emptiness inside him…

He might as well take a closer look, he told himself. Not that it really mattered. Imagining pulling the memory towards him, he slipped into it, dived –

_The apparition was standing at the door, quite calmly unfastening the straps holding his leather breastplate in place. His shoulder-length dark hair was untidy, yet very roguishly charming in a strange way… as were his features. Pale and handsome. That stranger made his heart go faster, and the grace of his every movement was enchanting in a way the priest would certainly not approve of…_

Now wait a minute. He was becoming immersed in this far more deeply than he had intended. After all, he only wanted to see what his mother remembered, not relive it. What did her exact experiences matter to him? They were only fit to embarrass him, nothing more.

Well, at least Créon had one use, he thought as he partially withdrew from the vision. He taught me quite a lot, though involuntarily…

_Yes, much better. He still saw through his mother's eyes, but at least he did not get her silly thoughts and feelings now. At least he kept his own. Just watch calmly, not falling over himself with naughty glee as the strange guest resembling him dropped the breastplate to the ground was the least a sane man could do._

_Sane?_ _How sane was he really?_

_Watching how he advanced on himself, he pondered that question. Seeing himself – if that was him at all – did not unsettle him anymore, not since Créon had shown him such a vision through his eyes. He had been looking at himself then, too, so this was not a new experience. Moreover, he had been engaged in a fierce sword duel with the man representing himself in Créon's twisted mind._

_Well, the thing this one might engage him in would certainly be much more disconcerting, come to think of it. Observing how his strange twin pulled his rough linen shirt over his head and threw it aside carelessly, he tried to imagine it and rather quickly decided to leave this memory before any things of a particularly odd nature happened to him. After all, he had a pretty good idea where this was leading. The look that one was wearing told him all he needed to know._

_My father, eh?_

_If not for those mad stories of Créon's, he might even have found it funny._

_No, probably not. Because he wanted to have a father, like everybody else._

_But on the other hand, did he really want to? Did he really want to be the illegitimate son of some nameless hangdog his mother had happened to meet one evening?_

_Yes. Just anybody's son._

_No. Absolutely._

_Even if this meant having some vision of his mother's instead of a father?_ _Some strange likeness of himself who just came into his mother's bedroom without saying a single word, smirking in an exceptionally smug manner – and Satan take him, how he smirked! – and discarded his clothes one by one?_

_Yes. Even then._

_I'm different from the others. I'm special._

_While that creature sprung from a dream kept coming, very slowly, sauntering as if he had all the time in the world, he briefly wondered how anyone could change his opinion so quickly – apart from women, of course. Not all of them, but _some _women._

_Well, I've got a right to be complicated._

_Are those leather trousers? Dark brown leather trousers? Not bad. Ah yes, and there's the trophy belt. Looks like some monstrous lizard's fang, that thing close to the belt buckle. Amulets, more fangs, hair, odd little metal ornaments… Interesting. And nice boots. Not to speak of the sword; an actual sword would be a brilliant thing to have. But that can't be quite me, he's still wearing his gloves. Right, now he's taking them off, but all the same, I would take off my gloves first, wouldn't I?_

_Or should I call them gauntlets, perhaps?_

_As the apparition unbuckled his belt, the Phantom was laughing inside. _This is insane_, part of his mind told him, _this is completely and utterly insane_, but he did not heed it. He was beyond heeding any rationality and reason today._

_Look at that, he's even got my chest hair…_

_The whole world was one great joke, wasn't it? One great cynical joke by a cruel god. And to survive in this world, one must become that god's very likeness. One must laugh at it._

_He felt himself – no, his mother – sit down on the bed heavily as the figure probably representing him stood directly before him, and he could only venture guesses at why this was so. Because his mother's knees had gone weak at the sight of him? Ridiculous woman._

_And his eyes made her melt inside, probably. Right down to a sticky little puddle of goo._

_Meg would like this idea._

_Then he raised his hand, or rather, a hand that was not exactly his, because it was a lot smaller, and reached out towards the man before him –_

He withdrew before his mind could become unsettled even more. Hell, this was sick, so absolutely sick! His mother was sick, and Créon was sick, and the whole world was sick! And he himself was sick, most of all.

Hell devour and destroy him, what reasons did he have to feel so light-headed at what he had seen?

The lights of the memories in the dark tunnel around him, normally reminding him of a star-strewn sky, suddenly looked like simple gas lights to him, so ridiculously boring, so disgustingly mundane.

As he left his mother's mind, the light of Chateaupers's study blinded him, even though he had never closed his eyes. He should not have looked, he should not have sought what lay hidden inside her mind. Now he knew that she had been telling the truth.

Which meant that Créon –

No. His mother perhaps, but not Créon. Créon had spent time enough searching his mind, after all, he might have somehow found out that the Phantom was some kind of demon-spawn or whatever, and he had tried to manipulate him with it by making up those stories…

Not logical, but at least some attempt of an explanation. Any reason wedged in between him and the possibility of believing Créon was a good one.

And he refused to think of his recurring nightmares now.

"Erik?" It was Chateaupers. "Erik, are you alright?"

"Never better," he growled. He still felt empty, but there was a spark of fury growing inside him, fury at himself and the rest of the world. Oh, he wanted to bang his head against the wall until he stopped thinking and fell into blissful oblivion!

And then he wanted to curl up very small and lie quite still, and to hold Christine's hand while he did so.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

He nodded briefly. What was that in his chest, feeling so incredibly tight?

For one single time, why can't I be like everyone else?

But then again… do I really want to?

Why were there so many questions he could not answer?

"What did you do?" It was his mother, whom he had practically banished from his thoughts, and her voice was nothing but a small, timid whisper. He should have liked that, but strangely, he did not care.

"Nothing you would ever understand," he growled. "You won't understand anything I do, anyway, so why do you still ask?"

But, to be honest, neither do I…

"Oh, there are some things she surely _would_ understand," Chateaupers objected. "For example, mademoiselle, did you realize that your son is the Opéra Populaire's finest tenor?"

"Why don't you tell her I'm the Opera Ghost, too?" the Phantom put in scathingly. His Opera House was none of his mother's business!

"You –" The woman's jaw actually dropped a bit, then she fought for air for what must have been two full seconds. See there, the Phantom thought, feeling oddly unconcerned, like an outside watcher, now that's something she's heard of before. Rumour spreads fast, after all…

"He's quite exceptional," Chateaupers pressed on, and the Phantom was sure he threw him a stern look while saying this, but he made a point of not looking at the chief of police. "You really ought to see him. Critics say his origins are as mysterious as his name, but he has an angel's voice."

On the point of snarling, the Phantom remembered himself in time and pressed his lips together. Oh, if they all would just stop talking about angels! It stirred too many memories that better remained untouched…

_A fallen Angel, and far from Heaven… beyond the hope of salvation…_

Before his inner eye, the sky was on fire once more.

And as he looked at the woman who stood before him, the woman who had done nothing but give birth to a demon who had existed before, who was not related to her at the slightest, but very far from human, he suddenly wished she could truly be his mother.

Oh Christine, Christine… I'm afraid I did not even lie to you when I said I was an angel…

Chateaupers was still conversing with her, but the Phantom did not listen anymore. Moments ago he had been dead inside, but now it all was coming back to him, and it felt as if the weight of the entire world were resting upon his shoulders. And around him and inside him nothing but darkness…

_Erik, Erik!_ Like the twinkle of a star in a sky hung with clouds, a voice called to him, a voice so dear to him his eyes almost filled with tears as he heard it. _What's the matter with you?_ There was the softest of sensations, a very gentle, feathery touch to his cheek. It was not a physical sensation, but nonetheless it felt very real. _There's no road so lonely you would have to walk it alone, remember?_

_Oh, Christine! _He could have laughed and hugged her and messed with her dark curls and tickled her and simply held her hand all at once! Always there when he needed her, sharing his darkness as nobody else did. _Have you been searching the notes on the organ again?_ After all, he had only inserted this line she had just quoted two nights ago.

What came back across their peculiar and so very unique mental connection was very much like an actual giggle. _I'm sorry. I couldn't resist._ The giggle was repeated, and the Phantom could vividly imagine the gleam in her gentle brown eyes. _Raoul and Meg were actually trying it out just now, you know, the quartet, but they messed it up completely. Well, maybe this has something to do with the fact that Raoul took on the part of Helena and Meg that of Lysander._

Despite himself, the Phantom felt his lips form a small smile. Even if the whole world had conspired against him to make him miserable, he still had friends. Yes, and this actually included that silly Raoul – sometimes. _Tell them to try Hermia and Lysander, that might be a little easier. Or Helena and Demetrius, if they're in mood for something a lot more difficult._

_Fine._ _But you do have to admit everybody is singing against each other in the quartet._

_No, absolutely not! Really, you disappoint me._ To show her that this was not meant to be taken entirely seriously, he added a gentle little mental poke in the nose. _Lysander_ _and Hermia are together most of the time, Demetrius usually is very closely in harmony with them – but well, yes, he and Helena are in counterpoint to each other, as well as to the others part of the time. _Yet he was quite sure she had seen this, anyway. She was a clever girl, after all, his Christine.

_Erik… I found Oberon's aria, too. Don't be angry. It's so beautiful, and so sad._

Oberon's aria. Suddenly the Phantom experienced a strange feeling, one he might almost call embarrassment. He had written it last night, to get his mind away from the blood he had spilled, but instead of dispersing his inner darkness, it had merely led him to another one. His lost love. _I only learn to love what I have lost…_ The same words he had put into the aria last night. Oh, Christine… She could have loved him, but the mask was between them, and it always would be.

The mask… the first thing his mother had ever given to him.

"Erik, are you listening?"

It was all he could do to keep himself from snarling. "What?"

"I asked what's on the program for tonight."

"What program?"

Usually Chateaupers did not let his feelings show, but the brief tightening of his lips told everyone who knew him better that he was growing impatient. "Which opera are you playing?"

"_Hannibal_. It's not as if we had much choice." Not in times like these. With a German army laying siege to the city, it would not be wise to play anything written by a German composer, so they had, though with regrets, dropped Wagner's _Flying Dutchman _out of the program, to be taken up again later on, once this was over – nobody knew when. In times like these, the managers had thought, something amusing was the best thing to play, and they had chosen _Il Muto_ and a few other similar comedies belonging to the Opéra Populaire's repertoire, yet of course Delannay had had a saying in it, too, curse the swine, and he had demanded Chalumeau's _Hannibal_, since this would improve the population's defensive spirit, as he had put it. Not that Delannay had ever come to watch the performance, but they had to follow his orders. For now. "But I won't be seen on stage," he added as an afterthought.

And he would not if he could help it, not if there was a chance of his mother coming to get a look at him!

"Ah yes, of course." Chateaupers shook his head in irritation, probably at himself because he had not kept it in mind. "And I do hope you aren't going to any time soon," he added in a stern tone. "We wouldn't want to make it easy for Delannay's men to get their hands on you. And don't do anything reckless, mind you."

"Don't lecture me," the Phantom replied automatically, in the weary tone he always used when Chateaupers brought up this topic.

"Think of Christine."

The Phantom sighed. "All the time." From the corner of his eye, he saw how the old woman raised her eyebrows slightly in curiosity, but this was absolutely none of her business, and he certainly wasn't going to tell her, so she might as well cease that stupid look of curiosity.

"Moreover," Chateaupers said gravely, "you've now got a family member to support."

The Phantom needed a full second to understand what the chief of police had just suggested. But when he did, the blazing spark in him leapt up and turned into a hail of burning icicles. "Excuse me, but why do I have to support a family member who never supported _me_?"

"For five years of your life, she did," Chateaupers said sternly, ignoring the woman's dissuading gestures. "Besides, it's the law."

Inside him, the storm of fire roared. How those icicles stung! "Why should I bend to the law when I have no rights myself?"

"Erik –"

Oh, enough of this! Enough of this all! "I have to be back," he said abruptly. "I'm expected."

Chateaupers sighed softly. Normally the Phantom did not mind this much, but this time it made the flood of fire contained inside him eddy and hiss. "Alright, but I hope to see you again tomorrow. Stay out of trouble, get some rest and come to terms with what you've learned. And then we'll talk again. Agreed?"

No. Not again. And no rest. He would not sleep now, because he knew what he would see when he closed his eyes: Smoke, fire, death, the end of the world of old, no matter if it was true or not, no matter if he believed it or not. He would see it nonetheless. He would see the Pillars of Heaven burning once more, and his heart would break, no, be torn asunder anew.

"Oh, and as for what you've mentioned about what you've done last night…" Chateaupers spoke quite nonchalantly in a way, something not very typical of him, and the Phantom suspected that he had something on his mind. "I won't ask, and I won't blame you for anything, I'll even cover up for you whatever it is this time – but I need another word with you about this."

So it was _that_ important to him, that business with his mother? Well, if he thought it was… The Phantom shrugged. "Fine. But don't expect me to be…" What exactly? "Overly cooperative," he finished a little lamely, cursing his own tiredness. He would need sleep, even if he did not want to.

"Of course not," Chateaupers answered almost absent-mindedly. "You're free to go, then. Mademoiselle Renard, I wonder whether I may have the audacity of offering you some tea?"

Turning on his heels, the Phantom gave him and the woman a curt nod, then strode out and pulled the heavy oak door shut behind him. He should have reprimanded the man for practically dismissing him like that, but he had other things to do now. More important things. Like seeing to his Opera House, for example, since surely someone would discover the bodies in no time now. And moreover, he knew the purpose of Chateaupers's invitation: The chief of police had been clever enough not to bother the Phantom with questions about what he had seen in his mother's mind. But he would bother his mother now.

Have fun, you two, the Phantom thought grimly. Not that he really cared. His mind was in turmoil, in the worst turmoil it had gone through in some time. His thoughts and feelings were racing each other, dancing through an ocean of fire…

Calm down, damn it! Calm down! Come to a conclusion!

He really needed rest, even if it was just a moment's, and maybe Christine to hold his hand…

Of course. This was what he needed. How could he have been so blind? If he could watch over Christine's dreams, maybe she could watch over his in turn. Maybe she could chase away that accursed nightmare and grant him some true rest at last.

And maybe she could make him forget about what he had just heard and seen. For a few blessed moments, at least.

_Christine? I'm coming home now._

And this was what he did.


	19. IV Seething Shadows

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Early update. Merry Christmas to you all.  
jtbwriter: I'll leave you to wonder how exactly everybody's favourite Ghost came into being.  
Polly: Pervy German owl, you call me, you pervy Texan… chainsaw? Right, sorry, that was a stupid association. Petting Gerard's ferret? I really don't want to know what that means… And I bet you'd like to get date-raped by an apparition, as you so nicely put it – how about getting ravished by your own Chaney Erik?  
Pertie: You gave me the idea for the early update with the mentioning of Christmas presents. (Everybody thank Pertie!) Wow, long review! Yes, our Ghostie (sorry, my sister's influence) really doesn't know what he feels at the moment, but you're right, eventually he'll come to terms with it, once he has understood and accepted it. But this is going to take some time yet. As for Christine and "moving on"… you're touching upon an important point, I'm telling you this much. But I think you're seeing it all unravel already… All the best wishes in return.  
Beregond's Girl: Scar reduction medicine? Don't even think of it, he'll need them later on, that's all I'm saying. Yes, the bit about telling his mother he's the Opera Ghost was meant to be funny, in a twisted way. And as for "lusting" for Beregond… well, at least you can keep him all for yourself, right?_

-.-.-

**IV. Seething Shadows**

Later on, Delannay could not quite have explained why he had left his office that morning. Suddenly a feeling of unrest came over him, and he rose from his chair, abandoning the spy reports LaCroix had brought in, left the office and locked the door behind him, pocketing the key as he headed out into the magnificent corridor.

This place was blinding, Delannay thought, tempting, dazzling and blinding, and too much so. But he needed this constant reminder of what the society had been like before, of what he hated and longed to destroy, or better yet, what he would make the people's, thereby destroying the privileges of aristocracy utterly.

Smiling to himself grimly, he imagined all the aristocrats he would command to lock into this very building's cellars. The higher levels had been searched thoroughly already, and even as he was contemplating his designs, workers were already busy building the cells he was going to need.

And lower down… Apparently there was a problem. There were stories, and the men were superstitious. He had had a word with a handful of those stage workers himself, and nobody of them dared to venture down the spiral staircase any further than to the second level. "It's haunted," they had said, and in awed whispers they had spoken the name which seemed to terrify them all. "The Opera Ghost…"

Oh, sucks to them and their ghost stories! But all the same, Delannay could not help feeling unsettled by those men's strange mixture of fear and, at the same time, something that came close to adoration. One man Delannay had noticed especially, a tall, dark-haired fellow called Gaston by the others, and his lips still twitched when he remembered his words. _The Lord Phantom does not suffer anyone to enter his domain uninvited, and his punishments are merciless._ Yes, of course there had been stories, and the newspapers had told of murders even, and of a mysterious man who had apparently committed them, though under a quite unexplainable influence of yet another mysterious man, the papers LaCroix had brought him on his orders had not been exactly clear on that point, but this did not mean Delannay had to believe in ghost stories.

He still was not quite sure about what had happened last week at his office, though.

But he would figure it out, and no ghost or phantom would get in his way. Especially if the one in question called himself a lord.

And he knew just where to start: Gérard de Chateaupers. That accursed nobleman knew something about this whole Opera Ghost business, that much was clear. If the papers had not succeeded in telling him what he needed to know, they had at least given him a hint.

But until then, he would hire other men, and he would send them down into the cellars. He would not allow himself to be detained for too long just because of those foolish opera people's superstitions.

Aimlessly he wandered through the purple, white and gold corridors, filled both with anger at the kind of society he and his allies were hoping to overthrow and heartfelt glee at his success in driving them from one of their very temples of vanity. Now it was his. His.

No. The people's.

Just as it should be. Paris was about to become an island of justice in an ocean of oppression.

But for how long? The enemy was advancing, and who knew how long Metz would still hold? Who knew how long Léon Gambetta would still be able to keep the enemy busy?

And if he would really do what needed to be done. Delannay did not trust Gambetta. But then again, he hardly trusted anybody.

And then he stood before the entrance to the auditorium. It was still early, so there came no sound from the vast domed hall behind those double doors padded with red velvet, but soon rehearsals would begin, and then it would be filled with voices and music, with the spirit to keep the population happy. Delannay himself did not care much about music of any kind, but many of the people did, so he had seen it as his duty to open this place to everybody.

All the same, it was still filled with the rich, mainly. At times Delannay felt like having them all shot.

As he reached out for the doorknob, a sudden sense of foreboding filled him, a strange, uneasy feeling he could not quite explain. Taking a deep, calming breath, he still could not quite chase away that odd sensation in the pit of his stomach, that buzz of a legion of flies…

Decidedly he pushed the door open and entered the huge, dim hall. It was empty; Delannay was quite alone in its overwhelming vastness. Now, when the lamps were not lit, the gold gleamed dully in the shadows, and the lush red of all the velvet seemed dark, like dried blood.

And still there was this buzzing feeling inside him, and in his ears, too…

Nonsense. He had worked too much yesterday, that was all. And he had listened to far too many ghost stories.

As he gazed towards the one box that was known as Box Five, he remembered yet another one of those stories. And a foolish one, too. He had had the place checked for any occupants during yesterday's performance of _Il Muto_, as well as during _Hannibal_ the day before, but the man he had sent had come back both times confirming that the box was empty. Nobody had been there. Well, maybe the man's gaze had seemed oddly… lost, somehow, but this had nothing to say. That one was not a very bright man, after all.

Was he just imagining things, or had something just moved in the shadows at the box's railing?

Of course not. He was being silly, that was all.

Continuing down the red aisle, over a red carpet that muffled his footsteps completely, Delannay still thought he heard a faint buzzing, along with a similar sensation in his stomach, but he did his best to ignore it. In a time of enlightenment, who, except a complete imbecile, would believe in ghosts?

There it was. Box Five. Above a magnificent balcony with statues covered in gold, a hole of black, like a dark maw.

Was he going crazy, or were the shadows really moving up there?

Turning his head away decidedly, he continued forward to the orchestra pit, which was deserted except for the usual chairs and music-stands, some of them littered with sheet music, some sheets even on the floor. One lonely cello waited in a corner, beside a set of impressive kettledrums.

Once again Delannay let his eyes wander up to Box Five. Could the shadows really be dancing in there?

No, not dancing. Seething.

Again he tore his eyes away, letting their gaze wander along the tier instead.

Strange, why had he never noticed that eerie skull and bones motif before?

If that was possible, the buzzing increased.

And then a fly buzzed past him, and Delannay could have laughed at himself. Of course, a place like this must contain a handful of insects, quite naturally, and its good acoustics were making their buzzing unnaturally loud.

Almost smiling, Delannay followed the fly upwards with his eyes, and further upwards…

And then he froze, and he felt as if his heart had just missed a beat.

Up in the gloom of the dome, high above his head, from the massive crystal chandelier up in the shadows, circled by several small black spots that were flies, almost invisible against the pattern of darkness around them, five pairs of feet were dangling gently…


	20. BOOK FOUR: Kindling the Flames

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Happy New Year, everyone! There'll be a "proper" chapter soon – if you review, that is, for otherwise I'll indulge in the vice of video-gaming once again…  
Bea: Two of yours to answer (as far as we haven't discussed it already via e-mail, that is). Yes, there was no way past angsty this time; I expected you'd appreciate it. And it's all Delannay's fault. Don't expect me to write any sensible stuff when the neighbours are burning off fireworks across the street.  
Pertie: You've noticed something about Delannay: Yes indeed, he doesn't intend to go down there himself. Maybe later on he will, though…  
Polly: That ferret loves you, I'm sure.  
Beregond's Girl: No, the buzzing is just the flies. Erik has nothing to do with it this time. As for pointing out the bit about "sucks", thanks a bunch, and I must say I'm amazed you know about it, but this is actually one of my little hints – remember the Lórien scene where they are blindfolded, and Legolas cursing the dwarves ("Sucks to the dwarves and their stiff necks!")? So it'll stay, but thanks all the same.  
jtbwriter: Yes, Erik's having a bad, bad day… and all for your entertainment!_

-.-.-

**Book Four: Kindling the Flames**

I. You must have been dreaming  
II. Unchanging as the Sea  
III. My Power over you  
IV. That Shape in the Shadows  
V. You always knew  
VI. Breathing Lies  
VII. Defenceless and silent

_There is a saying, lad: Better stand beside the devil on his day of victory than be in his way. You would do well to remember that.  
_–Aeternus

_Some things never change._  
–Créon


	21. I You must have been dreaming

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter, the first Meg chapter, is dedicated to Bea. You've been patient with me all those months, and you've stood my recent crisis and helped me out of it. That earns more than just an Erik purr. Besides, you're the best translator an author could wish for, and you might well have taught me more Italian than my Italian teacher back at school. A great "thank you" for all that.  
Pertie: No, not online video gaming. My sister and I are playing Harry Potter IV currently; I gave her a gamepad for Christmas and she's now playing Hermione on it while I play Harry on the keyboard. And we plan to invite my best mate, who'll bring his joystick and be Ron. And we don't play that much, only one hour and a half in the evening or something.  
Polly: You'll need to make arrangements with Maurice, then…  
Beregond's Girl: You're completely right, it's "plague" and not "sucks", checked it myself. Damn, damn, damn. No idea why I was so sure. Must be some other quote I'm confusing this with. Anyway, I know from an American student who came to our school that it's rather out of fashion and very British. Well, go figure some more, then…  
Morleigh: Here's more. And wait 'til Book Five if you want a bit of… well, not really smut, but a bit of steaminess at least. No, I'm not a Raoul basher. I grew fond of the kid while writing _The King of the Catacombs_. (Kid? He's as old as I am precisely in this story, but you see where my loyalties lie…)_

-.-.-

**I. You must have been dreaming**

"I wonder what's so important," Meg said between two highly laden forkfuls of lasagne. "They've been hiding in Chateaupers's office for two hours now, I bet."

Dropping his own knife and fork, Raoul fumbled in his pocket for his watch, grinning apologetically as the fork clattered onto the table, staining the tablecloth slightly with a mixture of béchamel sauce and tomato juice. "You've got no sense of timing whatsoever, I'm afraid," he proclaimed. "It wasn't even _one_ hour yet."

Meg kicked his shin under the table. It wasn't exactly polite, but he had practically been asking for it. At least he had the grace to wince.

"Are you tormenting him again?" Christine asked suspiciously, waving a threatening finger teasingly. "You know the poor lamb is too much a gentleman to fight back."

"I ought to pinch you for that," Raoul mumbled through a mouthful of lasagne, though smiling tenderly at his fiancée sitting opposite him, beside Meg. Sometimes, Meg thought, it was just unfair. Why did everybody fall for Christine and was broken-hearted as soon as she turned her head from the suitor in question for only a moment?

Of course this was vastly exaggerated; there were only two such suitors who loved Christine so devotedly, and certainly it had been very far from pleasant to reject one and choose the other, but still… sometimes Meg wished for a little attention for herself. She had her friends, and friends she would not exchange for anything in the world, but sometimes she secretly wished to have a fiancée, just like Christine had.

Of course, there was Erik. Erik was still free, and he had made her a few offers which had made her giggle and blush furiously; he was quite ready to become her lover, she was sure. He was like a brother to her, yet there was something else, too, an irresistible draw… But at the same time, he was flirting quite shamelessly with her mother, which was a bit unsettling. To be exact, he flirted with most females he liked, really. Marie and Geneviève and Victorine, but also the girls he passed in the corridors – those who did not squeal and run at the mere sight of him, that was – and even the plump young woman in the cantina, the one with the jolly smile… During those last few months, he had become quite a charmer. A real Don Juan.

But he had not been quite successful yet. Of course, Meg had occasionally caught him kissing one of the Poussepain sisters, mostly Victorine, but she knew this was practically all he had yet managed to do. He wanted more, but he had not yet gotten what he wanted. Meg herself had had to refuse him a few times, though sometimes she had felt a tiny bit of regret. For this was where the problem lay: What he could offer her was an affair, and her mother would more than simply box her ears if Meg did anything of that kind. If they married, well, that would be a difference, but how should Erik ever get married? He was an outcast with no name… and moreover, he would probably outright refuse to.

Meg sighed inaudibly. Poor Erik, how should he ever lead a normal life?

Not that _she_ led a normal life exactly, she thought with an inward smile. No, not since that day when the opera had been on fire, when she had found a white mask down in the cellars. On that night, the Phantom had entered her life, and everything had changed in a most thrilling and exciting way. And it had never been boring since, she thought happily.

Well, at the moment this was even improved by the young man squatting on the floor scratching Senta's ears. Raoul had introduced him as Roger de Castelot-Barbezac some time back already, an old friend from his childhood days who now was a companion at arms. She had seen him a few times already, always with Raoul. Roger. What a nice name. And he had nice blond curls, too, and a nice sense of humour, and a nice smile, and a nice grin as well, and nice brown eyes… he was nice altogether.

And he actually giggled at her jokes.

"Second helpings, anyone?" the cook asked, gesturing with a ladle. She was a small, plump woman with curled hair of a dark grey, and she actually belonged to the Chagny family, but as the most faithful of their servants had followed them into hiding and now worked for Chateaupers, who had sent his own cook off to the countryside to stay with her family – not only for her protection, but also because he had not been entirely sure whether he could trust her or not, not in times like these. "Oh, Raoul, don't put your knife on the tablecloth!"

"Sorry." Raoul flashed her an apologetic grin which made him look a few years younger than he really was. "Can I have some more now?"

"Any time, dear, any time." The cook went to pick up his plate from the table to refill it, obviously delighted that her guests enjoyed being fed by her. "What about you, Roger? Don't tell me you've had enough, you've always possessed a mouth hard to fill." To Meg's surprise, she reached out to tousle his hair a little. "Ever since you were four years old and found your way into my kitchen for the first time."

Roger beamed up at her, both hands hidden in Senta's fur. "And I've never been disappointed with your creations."

The cook beamed as she picked up his plate as well. "And you, Christine? You are pale, child, and too thin for my taste; you ought to eat more. Another helping for Meg, too?"

But before Meg could answer, the kitchen door was opened, and in strode two tall, grim-looking men mostly dressed in black, both with their dark hair long enough to reach their shoulders. Maurice de Bracy wore his open, as he always did, while the Phantom had bound it back with a thin leather cord once again. "Do I smell lunch?" Maurice asked without any introduction. Right on cue, the ferret perched on his shoulder twitched its whiskers and gave a little squeak.

"They're coming to sit with us?" Roger asked, at once on his feet. "Oh, bugger!" And he hurried to take his place on the bench once again.

"Afraid I might eat your meal, eh?" Maurice grinned. "Well, move over. Madame, may I be so bold?"

"Of course, marquis." The cook positively beamed with delight at two more to feed. "And Erik. Do take a seat. There's enough for all."

"Thank you, but I won't take anything." At least he shrugged off his cloak, but he remained standing where he was, his features as unreadable as ever. As so often, Meg wondered what exactly was on his mind.

It was fascinating to watch how quickly the stout woman's expression changed from benevolent to stern. "Oh no, I'm having none of this, young man. I know exactly you haven't had one single bite today; your friends already told me. And you need your strength. Come on, take a seat, I'm sure your friends will make room for you…" And already she was ushering the Phantom towards the table, treating him as if he were just another friend of Raoul's. And what was even more astounding, he allowed her to. But Meg knew he had a good reason for this: At times he simply enjoyed being fussed over by a motherly person, having never had a true mother himself.

Which reminded her… How had that meeting with his mother gone, a few days ago? Christine had told her about it, but Meg had not dared to ask him. Not that she feared he would harm her, not really, but all the same… she had seen him furious several times, and he frightened her in that state, when his teeth were bared in a snarl of barely controlled wrath, when his eyes froze and burned her at the same time…

As he took the place on the bench beside her, dropping his jacket onto the floor carelessly as he did so, she shifted towards Christine, and he briefly passed a still gloved hand over hers in acknowledgement. Sitting at his left, she saw that his features were serious – no, more than that, she might as well call them stony. And even though he was so close to her that their bodies touched, he seemed so distant, so far, far away… God, what was he up to again? What had he and Maurice been discussing with Chateaupers that had put him in this mood, in a mood where he did not even smile at Christine?

"Here you are," the cook said, obviously ignoring his expression, because she just could not be oblivious to the mood he must be in, as she set a full plate before him. "An extra large helping with extra béchamel sauce. Eat. You'll feel better." Yes, she had noticed it after all.

The Phantom gave her a brief nod of thanks, but waited until everybody was served, and only then he started on his lunch. Meg knew exactly how much he liked the Chagny family cook's lasagne, yet all the same his features remained cold, expressionless, even fierce. Not even after he had killed those five Communards and hung their bodies from the chandelier – Meg still shivered at the thought, and also at the idea that he had just curled up beside her after he had done it – had he looked so vicious!

From Raoul's worried frown, Meg could tell that he was thinking just the same about the Phantom. Whatever had occurred?

"It's excellent," Maurice stated, feeding his ferret a small lump of meat. It was not that he did not realize what kind of mood had settled on all of them now, but he simply ignored it, and he spoke quite matter-of-factly, as always.

Intriguing man, this Maurice. And dark and mysterious, too… But no, Meg was not going to fancy him, definitely not! After all, rumour had it that he had more mistresses than he could count on the fingers of both hands.

Did Roger yet have a girl? Meg wondered.

"Thank you, marquis. But I'm afraid it's not quite what it usually is." The cook heaved a heavy sigh, and it was all Meg could do not to sigh along. "I would have liked to add some more tomatoes, and celery, too, but all I have is carrots. And not enough meat," she added grimly. For her, that certainly was a crime, not being able to provide all the ingredients she found necessary. "Those are dark times."

"Made even darker by those dirty Commune hounds," Roger muttered, stabbing his lasagne hard with his fork. He had a nice scowl, too. "They ought to be shot, every single one of them."

"Erik's doing his best already," Maurice remarked, casually flicking another little bit of meat at his ferret, which caught it easily. "No need to deny it, pal."

"I don't intend to." The Phantom's voice was a rough growl, and Meg almost winced. Couldn't Christine do something about him? Well, easier thought than done, certainly, but surely her best friend was able to calm him, wasn't she?

"That little chandelier joke of yours… You wanted them to know it was you." Again, Maurice spoke quite matter-of-factly, if perhaps with a tiny hint of sarcasm, not heeding the cook's stunned expression at the least. Of course, the woman must know all the stories about the Phantom, but all the same, since Raoul had brought him to her, she had come to consider him another playmate of her favourite little boy's.

Had the mood in the room not been so gloomy, Meg might have laughed at this idea.

"Yes." The Phantom had dropped his knife and fork and was now regarding his own right hand ponderously. And still he was wearing his black leather gloves.

"What have you been up to for so long?" Raoul interrupted, and Meg saw his bright eyes flicker over to the cook. But she was not quite sure whether this was a good way of diverting them.

While the Phantom merely shrugged and returned his attention to his lunch once more, Maurice shot his friend a little grin. "You'd like to know, eh? Well, no harm ever came from telling those you can trust. No, madame, stay, that includes you."

"Thank you, marquis."

"You're welcome." Maurice gave a little chuckle which seemed strangely out of character somehow. "After all, Raoul says you're family." The cook actually flushed pink at that compliment, and Meg just had to smile. "You see, we're part of an actual conspiracy. In order to rid ourselves of the Commune, we're employing the Prussians and their allies."

"What?" Meg blurted out, then clapped her hand to her mouth. She was behaving like a silly little girl once again, something she really did not want to do before all those nice young men!

Maurice gave her a little grin, which made her want to kick him from under the table. Sadly, he sat too far from her to kick him accurately; she was rather jammed between the Phantom and Christine, and besides, she might hit Roger instead. Moreover, Senta had moved to lie under the table, where she noisily lapped up the fresh bowl of water the cook had just brought her.

"What do you mean by this?" the cook asked, straightening up and wiping off her moist hands – Senta had licked them gratefully – on her apron.

"Treason," Raoul said darkly. "My father told me just the other day."

"And you never told me?" The Phantom did not snarl, yet Meg felt there was a hint of menace in his tone nonetheless.

"Sorry. My father wanted me not to speak of it to anyone. He made me promise." Yes, and Raoul did not break his promises, Meg was sure he never would. Raoul was a man of honour if she had ever met one.

"Anyway," Maurice continued after another forkful of lasagne, "we're trying to end this war as quickly as possible, seeing as it's lost already."

"It's not lost yet!" Roger protested, his smooth, youthful features indignant.

"Metz fell yesterday," the Phantom said quietly. "Do you know what that means?"

At first Roger just stared at him with his mouth slightly open, and Meg could clearly hear his intake of breath, a gentle hiss amid the clattering of knives and forks on plates. Then he slowly nodded.

"Another army marching from the west," Raoul answered instead of him. "Free contingents to beat off Gambetta."

"Precisely," Maurice agreed. "And the chance of leading the people of Paris into an uprising about equals that of Gambetta succeeding in defeating all those armies and breaking the siege. Even if we could overthrow Delannay, we would be far too weakened to destroy the ring from within. And winter's coming. From what we know, the Prussians have all the resources they need to outlast it. Whereas we have not. Listen, food's being rationed already, and it won't be long now until they start slaughtering all the horses we don't necessarily need. This war must end in order for us to survive."

Suddenly picturing the population of Paris dying of starvation, Meg felt her stomach twist into a knot, and she lowered her fork again, trying to swallow what seemed to block her throat. "But…" she began weakly. "But… if we starve… if people die… Delannay will surrender, won't he?" Please, please, just say he will!

"Never," Maurice answered curtly. "Not Delannay."

"But can't we make him somehow?" She knew she sounded stupid, but, for Heaven's sake, the Communards would not want to starve themselves! And they could not do this! They could not just let the inhabitants of the besieged city die! "Erik, can't you?"

"The Communards are many, child." This time the Phantom sounded weary, maybe even as if he had pondered that question before and come to conclusions which were all hopeless. "How do you expect me to manipulate every single one of them at once?"

"They're fanatical," Raoul interjected. "They consider themselves better patriots than even the emperor was. Besides, the German countries are all ruled by kings and princes and counts – by nobility. Can you see Delannay surrendering to a representative of the system he hates so much?"

Meg felt her eyes burn as they filled with tears at the hopelessness of the situation. Why, why on earth did this have to happen? Why did she have to live in such times? Oh, how lucky she had been only months ago to live in peace, and how oblivious to the blessing it was! Gazing into her plate of lasagne, she suddenly did not feel hungry anymore, even though the smell filling her nostrils still was delicious as ever.

But there must be something they could do! Just anything! There _must_ be!

As if the Phantom had read her thoughts – and somehow she suspected he had – he laid his knife and fork down on his plate and said, quietly, "But we will not allow them to."

And at once the knot inside Meg's body did not feel as hard, as painful as it had felt before. Yes, there was something. Erik would not let Delannay do anything of that kind. Erik would deal with Delannay.

"That's where Erik comes in," Maurice continued, with a curt nod at the Phantom. The ferret squeaked, and he fed it another little bit of meat. "He's the only one stealthy enough to still slip in and out of the city, and he'll slip straight into the Prussians' camp, too, to deliver a message of Chateaupers's to Nordstedt."

"Nordstedt?" Roger repeated, and Meg was equally curious to hear who or what this Nordstedt might be, even though what Maurice had just revealed was exciting enough on its own already. Oh, Erik! Would he take her along perhaps? Well, maybe not exactly a good idea, but still…

"Walther von Nordstedt. The man in command of the force besieging us." Maurice cast a short glance around to see whether there were any more questions, smiled briefly at the cook's look of open-mouthed incredulity, and then continued. "He'll deliver the letter and carry back Nordstedt's answer, and then we'll see what is to be done. We all are aware that this is not exactly a pleasant option, maybe having to fight it all out in the city, so we'll try and find a way around that, but that's Nordstedt's concern already, he's the military man. We'll see whether he's ready to negotiate, and we'll see about his terms."

"But does he really care about the city?" Christine asked into the silence that ensued. "If they fight a battle in the middle of the city… many innocents will die."

"Aren't they dying already?" Maurice asked grimly. "Anyway, it's unpleasant for a conqueror, too, so Nordstedt will try to avoid it at all costs. Don't be afraid." Fending off the ferret, who tried to climb into his plate, he scraped up the last bit of tomato juice and béchamel sauce remaining, and Meg seriously wondered how he had just managed to finish his lasagne so fast while talking most of the time. "And when they attack, we attack. We'll strike at the strategic points in order to end it all more quickly. Once again, Chateaupers is thinking of Erik here."

"For all the strategic points?" Raoul asked doubtfully. "He'll need an army."

Maurice shrugged. "Chateaupers thinks he's quite capable of leading one."

"I can't." The Phantom spoke rather sharper than Meg would have expected, and with such angry intensity that Meg almost edged away from him. Lord above, no reason to get that furious, now was there?

"Erik," Christine began, tentatively, while Raoul was frowning at the tablecloth. "You know, perhaps –"

"This is not me," he interrupted, quietly but very decidedly, and Meg suddenly wondered whether he might be referring to some discussion he and Christine had had earlier on. "You know it's not. And it never was."

"But you've had it so often now," she insisted, and Meg was sure now that they were simply continuing something they had spoken about before. "Maybe you'll know how to do it."

"No," he insisted. "You've seen it yourself, and I'm sorry I made you. There's nothing I can learn from it."

"It wasn't your fault. I don't blame you." Christine hesitated for a moment. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

"Never mind."

Both Raoul and Roger were throwing her a questioning look by now, but Christine ignored it and looked at her plate instead. What was it she was keeping from everyone else? What was it she was not even telling Raoul about?

"Well…", Maurice began, casting the Phantom a glance before he returned his attention to his furry pet.

"Could I have a word?" the Phantom interrupted, addressing Christine over Meg's head. "Now." There was a surprising urgency in his voice, Meg noticed, and she seriously wondered what was the matter with him, and what secret he and Christine shared.

Was she jealous? No, of course not, Christine was her best friend! Or, to be honest, maybe a little bit. But just a little bit. No more than that. Certainly not.

Again Christine hesitated, then she nodded. "Alright." Then she gave the others an embarrassed little smile. "I'm sorry. We'll be back in a moment, and I'll tell you what was wrong."

From the look the Phantom was wearing, Meg guessed that he would prefer to keep it quiet, but if Christine had said so, then at least Raoul would certainly be let in on the secret.

Which meant Meg might be left out once again.

It was not right to think so, she reproached herself. They all were her friends, and they were entitled to have some secrets. And Roger and Maurice weren't told, either, most likely.

Yes, but had Roger and Maurice been there when she and the Phantom and Christine and Raoul had battled the Lost Ones? No! It had been _her_ who had stood at her friends' side, not someone else!

But she had not been too useful, actually, she had to admit to herself. Well, maybe she had shown Raoul and Christine the way down to that hall Créon and those others had been occupying, the way she had discovered earlier on, so they could free the Phantom from the Lost Ones' clutches, but apart from that, there was no major achievement she could recall. Raoul had accompanied the Phantom more often than she had, and he had really fought down there, while she had just added to those gypsy servants' general confusion by waving a pointy object at them, mainly, and the actual work had been left to the men, to the Phantom, Raoul, Gaston and Serge mostly, and Leclair, maybe. Whereas she and Xavier and the other girls had not done much exactly… except Christine, of course. Christine had guided them and helped the Phantom and even saved his life in the end, in some complex battle of minds Meg did not quite understand. No, Christine and Raoul had done much more than she had.

All the same, she had been there. And she always was there when the Phantom needed someone. As if it were her fault he preferred Christine, she thought in a flare-up of sudden anger.

And she had a right to know what this was about. "If you'll excuse me for a moment," she told the others. Getting up decidedly, she left the kitchen as the Phantom and Christine just had. No doubt, the others would think she was visiting the lavatory or something. But she would go and find out what those two were up to.

Once out of eyeshot, she treaded as softly as possible, and she was glad for the thick carpet in the corridor muffling her footsteps. Where could they have gone? She strained her ears for any spoken word, yet all she could hear was someone – probably Millet, Chateaupers's butler, since there were very few servants in the house, as it seemed – busy with something in the drawing room, what exactly she could not quite determine. Biting her upper lip with concentration, she carefully ventured another few steps – and then at once she thought she could hear voices from directly ahead. Passing large and slightly dusty bookshelves as the corridor broadened, she followed them quietly until she came to the point where the corridor broadened even further and led around a corner into a room she had not entered before, just where a display of china vases stood, and then turned into the passage to the upper floor staircase and the one leading down to the cellar level where the billiard-table stood. Meg could not help but grin at the thought of this highly amusing game.

But soon enough the thought of billiard was driven out of her mind again, for now she could hear the voices clearly, and although they were not speaking very loudly, she could understand what they were saying. Edging a little closer carefully, Meg tried to breathe as softly as possible.

"I don't want to see it again," the Phantom was saying fiercely, and Meg could vividly imagine his eyes flashing as he spoke. "I'm sick of it. And I won't believe it."

"You're frightened, Erik." Christine spoke very gently, very soothingly, as if to a child. "You're afraid of falling asleep."

"I am." His voice was rough, tormented somehow. Could he possibly be speaking of those nightmares he had mentioned, those strange nightmares of battles and burning towers? "I feel they're infiltrating me. They're trying to force me to… to be what they show me I am. But I'm not!" At once there was grim determination in his voice, and desperate defiance. "I'm not, and I never was! I'm no angel!"

"I know, Erik. I know."

"And I can't do it. I can't lead an army. I'm not who you saw in that dream."

"Oh, Erik…" Christine sighed, and Meg wondered how she could possibly have seen anything of that nightmare. "It's a dream. Just a dream. You are who you are. And you can lead your men because it's _you_ who is leading them, not because you're having nightmares about the fall of the Pillars of Heaven. Say, does Chateaupers know about those dreams?"

"No."

"Then don't tell him," Christine said firmly. "Not yet."

It seemed to Meg that the Phantom was growling. "Not ever."

"Eventually, maybe. He's a friend."

"But he thinks what Créon thinks I am." The Phantom's voice sounded pressed, strained, as if it were hard for him to keep himself from shouting.

"Forget about Créon. It's nothing but a dream."

"Christine…" He was speaking very softly now, and Meg had to strain her ears to catch every word he was saying. "What if Créon was right?"

Meg felt her insides freeze, though she did not quite understand why. Créon. He had scared her, more than anyone else had ever scared her… but what was it he was right about? What had he told the Phantom? Some strange stories, from what he had said, and from what she had heard herself, strange tales about his past, more like legends than anything else. How could they be true?

How could they frighten the Phantom so, the one who feared nothing in the world?

"I haven't told you everything." There was a tremor in his voice now, and at once Meg felt frightened, too. When he was, how should she not? He was so much braver than she was, and he had been there to protect her these past months, but how could she feel safe any longer if he did not? It was foolish, maybe, but all the same, she suddenly felt as if it all depended on him… as if the Lost Ones and the Communards and all that frightened her would come and get her now.

"Don't speak about it if you don't feel ready for it." Strange how Christine had suddenly taken charge, her childhood friend, a girl of seventeen, so much younger than he was. But suddenly it seemed to Meg that she was the adult now, and he nothing but a little boy.

"I must." He sounded determined, but all the same, Meg still thought to catch a frightened undertone. Maybe she was imagining things – and she hoped she was – but maybe she was not… "About my father. I told you my mother didn't know him, and all she could tell me was that he looked like me." There was a brief pause; but for Meg it seemed to stretch into eternity while she waited with baited breath. "I was lying, and I'm sorry. I have no father."

Pressing a hand to her mouth, Meg managed to stifle her gasp just in time. What was he telling her friend there? Did he really mean to say… No. It was impossible. How could he ever mean anything like that?

"You believe me, don't you?" Was there really a hint of bitterness in his voice?

"I believe your eyes." How could Christine be so calm when she said anything of that kind? How could she, in the face of what he had just told her?

"I did not believe it myself, at first. And I still don't want to. But I saw it in her memories. I know she wasn't lying."

"Maybe…" Christine hesitated. "Maybe she's… a little crazy…" But she sounded quite unconvinced, somehow.

"That's what I thought. But it still doesn't explain why I saw myself in her memories. Myself as I am in those dreams."

"My God," Christine whispered, and inwardly Meg repeated the same. Heavens have mercy on you, Erik, who are you? Who are you really?

"I'm my own father, Christine. She saw me on that night when she conceived me. I didn't watch what that vision of me or whatever it was did exactly, but I have a pretty good idea. She had that dream, and then I was reborn."

Christine was whispering something to him, soothing words from the way it sounded, but Meg could not quite understand. She just stood dumbfounded, feeling as if the world slowly revolved all around her.

"Please, Christine. Tell me that I'm no angel." He was pleading, like a frightened animal seeking shelter from a predator it knew it could not elude in the end.

But Christine said nothing, nothing at all. Meg wanted to run over to him, to hug him tight and tell him whatever it was he wanted to hear, but she found she could not. All she could do was stand there and stare at the tapestry beside her, those red roses entwining, myriads of red roses…

Red roses. He was everywhere, it seemed. Everywhere.

My God, why did I have to go and listen? Why?

But then he spoke again, and a change seemed to have come over him. "No. I won't give in so easily. I won't believe it. It's all Créon's fault."

"It was only a dream, Erik. Only a dream." But Christine did not sound convinced, somehow, nor did her voice carry the defiance Meg had heard in his.

"And a nasty one." He sighed heavily. "I'm really sorry for making you witness it."

_Witness_ it? Now what was he talking about this time? Meg felt confused and unsettled enough already without him irritating her with sudden topic changes. Suddenly she felt like kicking him in the shin for being a nuisance. But only a bit, not too hard.

"It's not your fault," Christine assured him, like she had done just before in the kitchen. "You didn't do it on purpose. You thought I might be able to shield your dreams like you used to do with me for so many years…" There was a short pause, in which Meg frowned at the tapestry hard, trying to get her mind back to a proper pace. For many years? Of course, he had been her Angel of Music, and she had seen him in her dreams… but had he been shielding them, then? Controlling them, even? Somehow this was not very surprising. Unexpected, perhaps, but she should have guessed so. "Maybe I should not have tried it while sleeping," Christine continued. "I mean, when you do it, you wake whenever anything bothers me, and you change it. But I… I can't. I don't know why. Maybe because I don't wake as easily as you. Or because I'm doing this all with borrowed powers."

Ah, so this was how it worked! The delight at discovering the answer to a riddle she had wondered about almost drove away the uneasy feeling that still was over her, and the sensation of… loss? Of loss? Did hearing strange things, to say the very least, about Erik really… _hurt_ her so? It was Créon, she told herself, Créon was giving her that feeling; he had scared her so much, after all.

But still…

"They're yours to keep." A little of the gloom seemed to have lifted, and suddenly there was a hint of amusement in his voice. Strange, it occurred to Meg, how a tiny change in his mood could affect everybody else, even a hidden listener…

"But all the same, I got them from you, in some way I still don't understand."

"Neither do I. But maybe I'll yet figure it out." There was a moment's silence, in which Meg held her breath not to be discovered, wondering how it was exactly Christine had learned to read the Phantom's mind. Somehow, her mother had suspected, some of his powers had seeped over into her unnoticed while their minds had been entwined in dreams, but to Meg, it did not sound too plausible, though she had not told her mother so, of course. Yet she had no other explanation to offer.

"Perhaps I'm getting like you, too," the Phantom suggested, and though it was not quite clear from his voice, Meg was sure he was smiling now. Whatever happened, however depressed he really felt, he always was back on his feet once the others needed him to give them strength. But what did he really feel like, underneath all that?

"Are you?" Christine certainly was smiling in return, she sounded like it.

"Maybe… You know, maybe I'll start giggling now and fussing over Raoul's silly hair and squealing when poked –"

"_Squealing_?" she repeated.

"And gossiping," he finished, quite unabashed.

"I don't gossip!" Christine protested, while Meg used her fist to stifle a giggle, astounded at how fast he had managed to change everybody's mood completely. "Anteater!"

Though she was trying very hard, Meg could not quite silence a snort of laughter this time, yet luckily Christine's merry giggle – undoubtedly at his expression – made it inaudible.

His soft chuckle was only too well known to her. "Again the humorous animal nicknames?" The tender fondness in his voice sent a twinge of jealousy through Meg, though she felt a little ashamed of herself immediately. But then all happiness left his voice once more, to leave it cold and expressionless, empty as a barren field in winter. "No, but I'm serious. It's only a dream, and still I can't go on like that."

"You need rest," Christine said earnestly.

"How? There's nobody who can banish those dreams, is there? They won't let me rest."

Christine replied to this, but Meg did not understand what she said, for precisely then a hand was suddenly pressed over her mouth, and she was pulled backwards by the shoulder, away from her two friends. Too surprised and shocked to properly fight back, she struggled only feebly, and at the same time she felt shame flood her, shame at having just been caught eavesdropping.

Once they had turned the corner, she was released once more, and she spun around to face whoever had just pulled her away, intent on telling him what she was doing was none of his business, and that she had every right to eavesdrop if she wanted, and – "Raoul!"

"Hush!" he hissed, bringing up a finger towards his lips.

"What were you doing?" Oh, Heavens, he would know exactly what _she_ had been doing, of course… Suddenly she wished she could just stamp a hole into the ground, no matter if that would damage the carpet, and disappear. And that she could not made her angry enough to kick Raoul in the shin really hard, yet at the same time, those earnest, gentle blue eyes simply could not be looked at while kicking their owner. Fuming inwardly, Meg stared at her own feet instead.

Raoul was silent for a moment, as if he were pondering the question. "They'll let you know when they're ready," he then said, gently, but firmly. "Until then, it's none of our business."

"What do you mean?" Meg asked, then felt like boxing her own ears for pretending to be so stupid. Raoul knew exactly that she had understood, and she knew that he knew.

Why did she always have to appear like a silly little girl to all the good-looking young men? Why did she always manage to make a bad impression? She felt the blood rush into her cheeks, and blushing made her feel even more stupid than she had felt already.

Raoul chose not to comment on her last remark. "Give them time," he insisted. "I know it's not easy, but we must trust them."

And to think he was Christine's fiancé, and the Phantom his rival… At once Meg could only admire him for what was true generosity. How much he must love Christine! "It must be hard for you," she said, feeling foolish. And she was not able to be like he was, and most likely she never would…

He sighed softly, almost inaudibly. "Yes," he said. "It is." Bowing his head, he swallowed, then he cleared his throat a little nervously – strange, he had no reason to be nervous – and nodded towards the other end of the corridor. "Come. They'll wonder where we've gone."

The blood still pulsing hotly in her cheeks, Meg accompanied him back to the kitchen, intent on keeping it a secret between them that she had tried to spy on her friends.

But all the same, she could not help wondering what kind of dream this must be, this nightmare the Phantom had mentioned several times now, and to her as well, that he was trying to reassure himself so hard it was only a nightmare and nothing more…


	22. II Unchanging as the Sea

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm sorry for the delay, but I'm rather overworked at the moment. I could do with a couple of reviews to cheer me up (hint, hint).  
jtbwriter: Yes, Erik won't go mad from his nightmares, not just yet. Maybe his nightmares make them care even more for them, or at least for some of them… well, you'll find out later.  
Beregond's Girl: Whoops. I didn't mean to make Meg a lesbian. What I meant was that she wanted a fiancé, not to marry Christine or something. Hmm, a longer review sounds good…  
Pertie: As for the messages, you'll see in the next chapter already. As for the bond… the comparison to vampires is interesting, it didn't yet occur to me.  
Bea: I know you, after all. A tip about Roger: Try to get hold of a Leroux and read the introduction, and it might give you a hint… Nosy, are you? And naughty, too, it seems…  
Morleigh: Another Garfield, eh? I'm a sucker for that stuff. Enjoyed your meal?_

-.-.-

**II. Unchanging as the Sea**

"Turmoil still. And getting worse."

Lászlo glanced over at his master, or at his liege-lord, as he preferred to call him. Sitting his dust-coloured mare as straight as any cavalryman, Aeternus possessed a bearing that made him appear a nobleman – if he wanted to be noticed at all, that was. More often than not, he preferred to remain unnoticed. And if he wanted to remain unnoticed… he became invisible.

Of course Lászlo knew that it was nothing but a mind-trick, but all the same, after all these years he had known Aeternus, it still seemed like magic to him. Well, in a way it was, though Aeternus would surely laugh at the suggestion. There was no explanation for a mental power like this.

Well, to be exact, there was. Lászlo knew the stories, after all, the legends of the world of old, of the War of the Shadow and of the fall of the Fateless, the Lost Ones. And he knew that there were others out there in the world, not only Aeternus, and each had his own history, and his own sentence of punishment.

The Wrath of the Gods, Sándor had once called it in a poetic moment, and Lászlo had smiled at it, especially since the moments in which Sándor actually achieved more or less acceptably poetry were rare. Not that his nephew was a stupid lad, but sometimes, far too often in Lászlo's opinion, he struck him as a blunderer.

Of course, he was being hard on him. His nephew was a keen lad, though a little bothersome at times. Lászlo's elder sister's son, Sándor had always considered him his favourite relative, and when he had set out with Aeternus, who had incidentally been that very same sister's lover for some time, Sándor had insisted on coming along. And there he was now, a young man of twenty-three, looking for adventure.

Himself, Lászlo thought he had seen quite enough of adventure, but Sándor was not sated that easily, it seemed. Once the silly boy had even tried to run away with a married woman, but normally, he restrained himself. Well, normally.

"How long until we reach the city?" he asked automatically, feeling Aeternus's gaze on him. Sometimes he truly got the idea that he could physically sense it when his liege-lord was looking at him; it made the back of his head tingle somehow.

"It's hard to say," Aeternus replied as Sándor urged his horse forward, eager to hear the answer. "We don't know yet how many encampments and armies there are to avoid. But it should be a matter of a week now."

Lászlo nodded. A troop of cavalrymen had given them trouble before; they had been forced to take a long detour through a forest to avoid detection, and Lászlo was sure he still bore the marks of a wild ride through low-hanging branches… Yet he did not question Aeternus's orders. He rarely ever did. And it was not a matter of obedience. It was a matter of trust.

"But, my Lord," Sándor spoke up, his normally so smooth brow furrowed, as always when he did not quite understand something. "You said that the city is besieged. There must be a _ring_ of encampments around the city. We can't avoid them all at once."

Not looking at the young man, but ahead at the gentle hills in some distance, Aeternus smiled. "And we won't. But leave those worries to me."

And Lászlo knew they would reach the city eventually. If Aeternus said they would, then they would. It was as simple as that.

Seemingly of its own accord, Aeternus's horse began to move along the dusty road again, and Lászlo and Sándor hurriedly heeled their own horses to follow its lead. But Lászlo was not fooled by what seemed to be the horse's decision alone; Aeternus had a way of communicating with it that would go unnoticed by everybody else.

Except another one equally gifted, perhaps.

At once the image of the young man they were bound to encounter at their destination appeared before Laszlo's mind's eye. Young man? Well, no, actually that one was several years older than he was himself, but he did not look like it. And from what Lászlo knew, his features would not change for many a year yet.

It was a strange thing, but one got used to it more or less after spending considerable time with a man who was over four hundred years old and looked just as if he were in his forties, like Lászlo himself.

And all the knowledge and experience Aeternus had collected as the centuries had passed, and all the powers he had developed… Awe took Lászlo every time he considered it. Especially when thinking about the fact that Aeternus could not only look back into the past and behold the present, but also glimpse what lay ahead…

"My Lord," he asked, "can you tell how long this war is going to last?"

For a brief moment Aeternus closed his eyes, and Lászlo thought he could hear him exhale over the sound of the horses' hooves. "Not long," he then said. "Not this single one. The world will have peace again… but for a short time only."

There was a little gasp from Sándor, and as Lászlo turned to look at his nephew, the lad pressed his lips together and stared at his horse's untidy brown mane. The fading sunlight playing on his youthful features made his furrowed brow a pattern of light and shadow. Like his uncle, Sándor knew better than to doubt what their liege-lord perceived.

Aeternus continued softly, as if to himself, but Lászlo knew that it was directed at him really, at him and Sándor. Aeternus never denied an answer to those who kept him company, the only thing he sometimes did was to postpone it. His voice was strangely raspy, but maybe it was just the cold wind arising, stirring the leaves on the road, whirling up spirals of dust. "The world is changing. Even as we speak, time is running out. This age is dying, irrevocably drifting towards the gathering shadows. War will tear the world apart. And from war it shall be born again. This is just the beginning of the end."

The sound of a branch snapping nearby seemed unnaturally loud in the ensuing silence between them, like a whipcrack amid the hoofbeats, giving Aeternus's words a cold, clipped sense of finality. Then Sándor voiced the question which lay on Lászlo's tongue, but which he somehow dreaded to ask, maybe for fear of the answer. "Is this the end of the world, then?"

"What? No." Aeternus laughed softly, and the sudden gloom lifted a little. "Just the end of an old age, the age of imperialism, of kings and queens and patriotism and honour and old glory. For only a few decades from now, all these countries' conflicts will culminate in a greater war than the world has ever seen before, fought with new strategies and weapons, a war that will be carried out into the colonies, that will set the entire world on fire. And when it's over, the world will have changed, the borders drawn anew, sometimes beyond recognition. And then, for a short period, an unsteady peace before the nations will arise yet again to march to war, a war that will even surpass its predecessor, and, in imperialism's last agonies, shake the earth to its foundations. I can already feel the vibrations so much death and destruction cause in the flow of time, millions and millions dying, entire cities wiped from the face of the earth. And after that... a new age will rise out of the ruins of the world, a strange, godless age where everyone pursues his own idols."

"And then the world will have peace again?" But more than that, Lászlo hoped that he would not live to see what his liege-lord had predicted.

"No. The world will never have peace, and you know that. It never had, and it never will. In fact, some of us were created for this purpose alone at the very dawn of time, because war is part of the nature of the world. You know of whom I speak."

"_Him_?" Sándor asked, and they all knew who he meant. "Will _he_ then take part in this war?"

"He is bound to," Aeternus replied, "ever since his creation. He was made to be a warrior, and to defend the world of old against all evil."

"And yet he didn't." Sándor knew the stories as well as Lászlo did.

"No, because a man is not a war machine, even if you use one of my own kind as such. You met him yourself, after all; he possesses all the qualities a warrior needs, but his wild nature and his consuming passions, resulting in dire hatred and an obsession close to madness, have always been his weakness."

"True, he didn't exactly strike me as a nice person," Sándor muttered, and Lászlo, slightly amused at his nephew's wording, nodded in agreement.

"No, and he never was. Before he built the Pillars of Heaven, the Keeper of the Gates spent long ages in exile, waging war upon the creatures of the Shadow at the rim of the world, together with his loyal companions, who formed an army known as the Black Legion. Wraith they called him, and several other names, most of them not too pleasant, I might say. He was honoured for what he did, and by mortal men equally adored as he was dreaded. But he came close to an outcast amid his brethren, for he was known for his dire, passionate nature, his lust for domination and his cruelty. He travelled every known corner of the world of old, from the Lonely Plains to the Sundering Mountains, and even to the place from where the strange vessels of the Divine set out to sail the void, and it is said that he also stood above the Gate of Night, gazing out into the one shadow that is eternal. But he never returned to his place of birth, if you will call it so, until after the defeat of the Bearer of Light. For when this first self-proclaimed master of darkness was cast down into the Abyss, my kind realized that we would need protection, that the war was carried into the very heart of our realm, and so the Keeper of the Gates devised and built the Pillars of Heaven, and together with those loyal to him he kept unceasing watch on the high, parapet-crowned ramparts, thus earning his name. And because he did his duty so well, because of his valiance and bravery, he was chosen over the Hunter as the leader of the Armies of Light."

"But, my Lord," Sándor interjected, his eyes narrowed, though it was hard to tell if this was because of what Aeternus had been telling them, or just because of the wind, "how could they make him Keeper of the Gates if he was wild and power-hungry and cruel, as you say?"

"It's not as simple as that." Aeternus absent-mindedly patted his steed's bowed neck. "He was not only known for his flaws of character, but also for his honour, and for his loyalty most of all."

"And yet he foreswore his oaths and destroyed his own world by his betrayal," Lászlo interjected before he could stop himself. Whatever Aeternus was planning, and for whatever reason he had been helping this fiend, back then when they had been with Créon and his acolytes, Lászlo could not bring himself to trust the one known as the Phantom.

"Yes, he did. But less for his own hunger for power than for his unrequited love."

"But Créon wanted power," Sándor stated, "and he was with Créon then."

"Indeed. But this is precisely where our one-time companion went wrong with our young friend, a couple of months ago. He did not see that he would not be swayed by being offered the chance of standing at a powerful man's side, that this was not what had lured his desired victim so many ages ago. He attempted to use the girl as well, yes, but he did not truly see what had led the Keeper of the Gates to join league with the Shadow: a mad, passionate love that drove everything else out of his mind. You see, the Herald of Fate – or Créon, as you know him – was a mighty man when he still served the Lord of Shadows in his sacred hall, before he deserted his loyalties, but his pride always was his weakness, for it kept him from perceiving what it truly was that others moved in their hearts. He only ever saw himself. As you know, he and his fellow conspirators, most of all the Lady of Dreams, but also, I must admit, I myself, turned to the darkness because of what forbidden promise it held; we desired power above all else then, whereas the Keeper of the Gates wanted one thing only: to have the love of this mortal girl who loved another of her kind."

Plucking a twig out of his horse's mane, Sándor flicked it away over his shoulder. "Why would any woman take a mortal when she can have a god?"

"You underestimate true love," said Aeternus, smiling, his bright eyes briefly flickering towards the edge of the road, the direction the twig had disappeared to. "Besides, we were powerful, but we never were gods."

Sándor shrugged. He was too young to understand, Lászlo thought. "Anyway," he said, "he didn't get the girl, or did he? I mean, Créon could change fates or something apparently, at least back then, but I doubt it worked, or did it?"

"No, because the Lady of Dreams longed to possess him herself, and from what I know, she persuaded the Herald of Fate to kill the girl."

"Bitch," Sándor said sympathetically.

Aeternus laughed. "Oh yes. You had the pleasure of knowing her, after all. As Créon said himself, but did not truly understand, some things never change."

"Niobe," Lászlo helped his nephew as he saw his blank expression.

At once Sándor's face lit up with realization. "Niobe? Of course! She wanted him! I saw her, in that underground hall at the Opera House, always ogling and pawing him... I bet he didn't want her back then already, though she's the best-looking woman I've ever seen. But she's just... nasty."

How fitting, Lászlo thought. While Niobe had been a woman of great beauty, she had also been overly power-hungry as well as heartless, her coldness surpassed only by that of Créon himself.

_Some things never change…_

"When the Keeper of the Gates realized he had been betrayed," Aeternus continued, "he turned against his former allies and fought them bravely, and I believe he saved much that would otherwise have been lost, if he cannot even be considered the one who stood in the way of the ultimate triumph of the Shadow on that day. Yet it was too late; his treason could not be undone. And so he and the others, including me, were shorn of much of their powers and cast out into the world, condemned to live forever among mortal men, reborn endlessly until the end of time or, perhaps, until the Gods had mercy on us, forever marked with what brands us as outcasts, even among mortal men."

As Lászlo looked sidewards, he saw that Aeternus's gaze lingered on his black-gloved right hand resting on his saddlebow. On his left, with which he held the reins, he wore no glove.

"But he's remembering now, and it's tormenting him, more perhaps than any other of us. We must reach him, before it is too late. As I just said – some things never change."

Hearing the urgency in his liege-lord's voice, Lászlo hoped that they would be in time. Not that he truly understood what this was about, why Aeternus had been in such a hurry to leave Bavaria so suddenly, and in times like these, and neither did Sándor, he was sure, but he fervently hoped that they would not be too late.

Could the Gods truly be so cruel, to give a man an unchanging fate that might make him drag along all the world into ruin over and over again?


	23. III My Power over you

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: At_ _last, an update. Those are evil times for me, and I thank those who reviewed and cheered me up a bit. I hope I'll have all the time in the world once February comes, but there's some chance I might be forced to study some more (ye gods, I'm growing sick of it!), or maybe I'll be working for court, putting people's petitions into the proper form, maybe even writing verdicts, but most of all running to get documents copied and messages carried… I can't tell you yet.  
Morleigh: Yes, life's very hectic, but I hope that'll be over a few days into February (see above). I'm really sorry about the slow pace. As for Aminta, I'm afraid you'll have to wait for some time yet.  
jtbwriter: We'll see about that visit in the next chapter…  
Pertie: It seems you got the point of the chapter; don't doubt your ability to understand it. ;-) Sometimes it's necessary to provide you readers with some information that leaves even more questions open, but in the end they will be answered (oh, I know, this is only Book Four yet…).  
Beregond's Girl: I don't expect anyone to like Créon, though I do so myself, as his "creator". See for yourself about Aeternus; it won't be of any help if I tell you I like him as well. g Yes, of course it's a lot easier for those who have read _The King of the Catacombs_; I'm trying to make it understandable, but of course I can't re-tell the whole story. Well, as long as you understand everything that's going on, no reason to worry. :)_

_Bea: What's wrong with a pervy Erik? Now that's not quite like you… Actually, I never associated Erik with Boromir, that's just you being obsessed with Sean Bean (who sadly got killed in _The King of the Catacombs _already – I do love my little cast lists…), but I can see your point. No, indeed not a surprise, since I sent you a whole bunch of spoilers…_

-.-.-

**III. My Power over you**

Throwing his head, César left the road, still at a gallop, his hooves throwing up stones and mud from the morning's rain as he raced out into the fields. There was no cover to be had here, yet as long as it was dark, the Phantom knew that he would be nothing but a shadowy speck among other shadows now. Besides, his awareness of anything living around him told him that there was no-one close who could see him.

It also told him where he had to go.

Getting out of the city had been even more difficult than he had expected it to be, but where he had not used his manipulation tricks, he had pretended to be a scout, and there he was now, riding through darkness and danger, on his secret mission, the errand no other could fulfil. Chateaupers's letter was safely hidden in his inside pocket; he could feel it against his chest. Had he been caught at the gates with it, in that corridor of pits and quickly erected ramparts, it would have been a certain death sentence for him as well as for the chief of police and his fellow conspirators – among them the little fop boy's parents, he reminded himself – and for everyone near them, too, most likely. For Christine. As he had slipped out through that sortie gate in the city's defences at last after dulling two guardsmen's senses, leading César by the reins, the letter had felt so strangely heavy suddenly...

But they would never catch him! Not the Opera Ghost! Even though he had to admit that as yet he had no idea how to get back in past all the guards. He was convinced that he would be able to, but how precisely… Getting in would be harder than getting out, for sure, since nobody would expect anyone to leave the city, apart from scouts and lookouts, but German spies sneaking in was what everybody dreaded…

He could do it, damn it! He would _not _be forced to live outside the city walls from now on! He would find his way back in, and he would bring Chateaupers and his fellow conspirators the answer they were waiting for. He certainly would not give Raoul's mother the satisfaction of being right.

And once this was over, he would go home to Christine.

César was happier than he had been for a long time, it seemed. For so long nobody had taken him outside the city, where he could gallop over the open plain. The stallion had missed it, the Phantom knew. And although he had come to the stables regularly to check on him, he sensed just a hint of a feeling of betrayal in the horse's mind. Of course, how should an animal understand?

And Senta. She had followed him and his friends to the stables, and she had wanted to run after him as he had left, and as he had communicated to her that she should stay, the feeling of disappointment and indignation she suddenly exuded had been all too easy to interpret. And maybe a little jealousy, because César was allowed to go.

Well, there was nothing he could do about it.

Reining César in gently, he slowed him down to a loose trot. He had been riding for some time, and ahead of him a shape came into focus in the foggy night, a large, looming shape, just as his awareness of a large number of humans increased. There he was, then. There were camps all around the city's circumference, nine altogether, just out of range of cannons, but close enough to guard its gates. In a night like this, they might miss single riders or small groups of them, yet it did not matter. They would not miss supply convoys, and they would not miss a sortie. They would starve the population of Paris, at the same time as crushing any attempt of defence. And they were waiting.

True enough, there had hardly been any actual attacks on the city's defences, and those that had taken place had been rather half-hearted attempts. Walther von Nordstedt was biding his time, well aware that now Metz had fallen, he had all the time in the world.

A good leader, the Phantom suddenly thought, and at once he felt some kind of grudging respect for the man who ultimately held the city in his claws. When attacking a city, it was always the attacker's army that suffered the higher losses. By waiting for starvation and the cold of winter to do their work, Nordstedt kept as many of his own men alive as possible.

And soon enough, he would hopefully see him face to face. He had to admit to himself that he was curious.

As he felt single luminous pinpoints detach themselves from the larger mass, coming towards him, he slowed César down to a walk, and he stallion obeyed, though he distinctly felt that César would have preferred another gallop. They had found him, then.

Adjusting his black mask that hid the upper half of his face, he could not quite suppress a grin. Excitement was surging through him, and glee at having come this far unnoticed. He pulled his cloak around himself, assuring himself that it was _not_ because of the cold wind, definitely not, and gazed into the fog-hung night before him. They must turn up soon now, very soon –

Ah. There. Four riders detached themselves from the thick darkness, galloping towards him and reining their mounts in sharply as he reached them, men in dark uniforms which would most certainly be marine blue under the light. None of the animals reared; apparently those men were good riders. Yet he clearly felt that he unsettled them, and the nervousness that hung in the air so tangibly secretly amused him.

As expected, one of the men addressed him in German, demanding to know who he was and where he was heading, and to his satisfaction he understood every single word. Take this, Vicomtesse de Chagny! Thinking I don't speak German – hah!

Well, to be honest, he had not done the actual speaking yet. But now was the moment to try. "I carry an urgent message from Gérard de Chateaupers, chief of police. Take me to General von Nordstedt." He hoped he had pronounced everything correctly; while he had learned most of his vocabulary from books, his knowledge of pronunciation mainly came from listening to German singers talking among themselves.

Two of the riders exchanged a glance, while another, the one who had spoken, shook his head. "I don't think –"

Looking him straight in the eyes, he repeated, "Take me to General von Nordstedt." He spoke gently, but his voice had acquired a commanding tone now, and his eyes were boring into the other's awareness, melting all resistance away.

"Very well," the soldier said – or corporal, judging from the shoulderpieces on his dark blue coat, though the Phantom was not quite sure how to tell the ranks in the Prussian army. "Follow me, then. Altmann, Schlesinger, back to your posts. Bucher, you come with us."

And then he was already riding past a line of sentries, into the camp, and the flecks of light enveloped him.

The encampment was rather larger than he had expected; tents were covering practically every patch of ground, in neat, orderly lines that clearly spoke of high discipline, and where there were no tents or endless picket-lines of horses, the grass was trodden down from many feet and hooves passing over it, and a little further on some cook-fires burned still, and among them, bustling like bees in a hive despite the late hour, were the soldiers, thousands of soldiers.

And this was one of nine camps only. Whatever Gambetta did, no army would be large enough to break that siege.

Chateaupers would be very content indeed when he found out he had been right.

Of course the Phantom drew the soldiers' eyes, and he picked up several whispers as he rode through the encampment after his guide, but he ignored them, just as he ignored the scent of burning wood and sometimes still of something edible from the fires, as well as the occasional unpleasant smell of sweat, horse dung and the latrine pits. Once another man, clearly an officer, stopped them and demanded to know where they were heading, but the Phantom's guide informed him that he had been ordered to take "that masked man" to Nordstedt, and the officer did not ask any further, though he shot the Phantom a wary glance as they rode past.

César was uneasy, he flicked his ears nervously as if tormented by flies. Was it the unknown environment, or the tight-packed tents, or the smell of all the other horses kept in neat picket-lines? Or was it the Phantom's own uneasiness he felt?

No, the Phantom thought grimly, César was the one being nervous. Certainly not he! Nobody should ever claim the Opera Ghost was nervous! And the one who did would most likely find himself with a lasso thrown around his neck and yanked tight as soon as he turned his back… The Phantom grinned to himself, yet somehow this idea did not quite provide the satisfaction he had hoped it would offer. What was the matter with him recently?

Passing what might be considered a patch of open ground, at least in comparison to all the tight clusters of tents, they came to a tent that was rather larger than the others, though did not differ from them in any other aspect. The staff tent, the Phantom thought. The command tent. And Nordstedt is there, no doubt, pacing along its length tirelessly, pondering his next move…

He was quite curious to meet this man, he had to admit. But not nervous, no. Certainly not nervous.

Oh, to Hell with it, why did he have to get such a queasy feeling at the pit of his stomach?

Dismounting as his guide dismounted, he threw the reins to a guardsman standing nearby. "Careful," he warned him, employing some vocabulary he really enjoyed employing. "The beast bites." And then he followed the corporal into the tent, suppressing a smirk as he went. Yes, César _did_ bite, sometimes. But only if the Phantom told him to.

They passed through some kind of ante-room containing nothing at all, except a few folded-up chairs and spare blanket rolls, nothing but shapes in the shadows, and then the corporal parted the canvas before him. Light poured in as he saluted. "General, I present the messenger you were expecting."

And now was the time for the Phantom to take everything into his own hands. It had been easy, almost too easy. "Thank you," he told the soldier. "Leave us." And as the man stepped back, he took his place, feeling that though there were guards nearby, he and the general were quite alone –

They stood only a few paces apart, facing each other. Nordstedt was a very tall man, taller even than the Phantom was, and with broad shoulders, and the hand on his sabre hilt was a clear threat. His features were sharp, his high brow beneath the light brown hair furrowed, his bright eyes narrowed, completely focused on the intruder. His nose had been broken at least once, the Phantom noticed, if not several times. This man was not only a strategist, he also was a soldier through and through, no doubt.

"Who are you?" It was a demand, not a question. Hell, the man felt like a taut spring in the Phantom's head!

"A messenger. Since it is not in my interest, I will not harm you." If possible, the spring coiled even tighter. The Phantom almost smiled as he reached inside his cloak to produce the letter. "This is from Gérard de Chateaupers." As he held it out for Nordstedt to take, he noticed with satisfaction what a nice contrast the white paper made to his black-gloved hand. A mysterious messenger, indeed…

For a moment Nordstedt hesitated, his eyes as narrow as ever, then he reached out with his left hand to accept the letter. The right hand remained on the sabre hilt, however. Studying the blank front of the envelope for a moment, his gaze quickly returned to the Phantom. "You did not answer my question yet," he stated, in French this time, mustering him with clear suspicion.

"I have answered it as far as it need concern you." Just read the message, curse you, and give me a reply so I can be on my way again!

All the same… impressive man, that one.

"You know," Nordstedt said slowly, speaking softly and with a very slight accent that slurred his speech, "I prefer to settle business man to man, but currently I'm more than just me. Currently I'm responsible for this camp and all the others, for thousands of men. And I cannot afford to endanger myself, even if this is the way it should be. So don't force me to call for help. Have you understood?"

The general was threatening him, then, because he seemed dangerous. Very well. He had understood perfectly, and it made perfect sense. Besides… it seemed he had managed to scare him, or else Nordstedt wouldn't talk that way. Or would he?

Not that it mattered, to be exact. He was here to deliver a message, not to scare a general, enemy or not.

Enemy? Was Nordstedt still an enemy, after Chateaupers had written this letter?

"I take it you have," Nordstedt said as the Phantom did not react. "Now. If I'm not very much mistaken, you claim to come from the chief of police, who resides in Paris, as far as I know. I have heard of Chateaupers, before you ask. Do you mean to tell me you come directly from Paris? And while you're at it, do explain how that poor man who brought you became so… confused."

"I have power over others' minds." He said it easily, as if it were a natural thing – and to him it was, somehow, because he had been doing it for so long.

In Nordstedt's face, not a muscle moved. "That would explain quite a few things," he said dryly. "I happen to have seen a hypnotiser show his arts, but that it could go as far as leaving a heavily guarded city unnoticed…"

"It was dangerous, but I took the risk." The general should know that this was important to Chateaupers.

"Then tell me… how does a man like the Comte de Chateaupers become a traitor?"

"Through a city falling into a mad tyrant's hands," the Phantom replied simply. He did not like Nordstedt's scrutinizing gaze. Not that the man could read minds, but his sharp stare somehow gave the impression he could.

"And no allies to be found anywhere." Nordstedt nodded, his bright eyes never leaving the Phantom. "I've wondered about that myself."

Quite naturally. "And you've come to the conclusion that it makes things easier for you?"

Suddenly a little smile appeared on the general's features and made them more lenient. "In fact, no. The Commune will not negotiate."

"So you've tried it." Not surprising, really, though the Phantom had not thought that he might have.

"What kind of man do you think I am?" The frown was back, and once more Nordstedt's features were hard. "If there is a way I can save my men a battle and maybe even spare civilians' lives, I will take it if it leads to the desired result." Letting go of his sabre's hilt at last, he tucked his thumb into his belt. His gloves were as white as his uniform, the Phantom noticed, or at least they had been white once, before they had acquired that slight shading of a dirty yellowish-brown. Old gloves, and often worn. The uniform, however, doubtlessly a gala uniform, was immaculate. Seldom worn, perhaps? Somehow Nordstedt did not seem the type for gala uniforms.

Still watching the Phantom warily, Nordstedt continued softly, as if to himself, but certainly addressing the Phantom, "What kind of man are _you_, taking me for what you think?"

"A suspicious man." The Phantom suppressed the brief flare-up of anger; there would be no need for any demonstration of power. Chateaupers had asked him not to. "Why don't you read the letter?" And Nordstedt had to do so of his own free will; for if the Phantom manipulated him now, he might agree with everything Chateaupers suggested, but as soon as the Phantom was too far from him, he would be free again, and everything would have been in vain.

Oh, curse people's free will!

"Why don't you take your mask off?" Chateaupers asked calmly, not even glancing at the letter in his hand. "Or else I might have to take you for a coward."

This time, the anger was very hard to suppress, and the Phantom almost reached for the dagger at his belt, but he controlled the beast roaring dire fury inside him just in time and forced it back down into the darkness whence it had come. Not a coward. Never a coward. Very well, if that Prussian wanted to be scared, he would make him understand… His features stony, he slowly took the black mask off, willing his hand not to tremble. No, he would not think of that terrible moment now, of that moment when Christine had snatched just this mask from him on stage, leaving him bare, unprotected, for everyone to see… "Why don't you read the letter now?" Despite his efforts, his voice had a rough edge to his own ears.

"Clearly, you're not a very patient man." Surprisingly, Nordstedt wore a smile of amusement, and not the slightest sign of disgust or shock at the Phantom's scarred features. "How did that happen? Battle scars, maybe?"

At once images filled the Phantom's head, smoke and flames, the Pillars of Heaven burning, bolts of lightning tearing the black clouds, and in the yards and on the ramparts shapes fighting, and others lying still, some in strangely distorted positions… and where once a dome had been, the Hunter stood waiting under the fiery sky, by the Ever-Burning Flame… the Ever-Burning Flame… "Yes," the Phantom said quietly, "battle scars."

"Ah. I had the distinct impression you might be a man of war." Nordstedt's fingers wandered towards the seal, but he did not break it yet. "Do you have a name?"

"Call me…" Here the Phantom hesitated. Which name should he give? Opera Ghost? Or better Phantom? Certainly not Erik; that was too private. But suddenly he felt that those other names were too well known; if Nordstedt knew Chateaupers, then he might know the one of whom the papers had written so many strange things just as well. Not very likely, yes, but still possible. Should he really allow the general to know about his connection to the Opera House, to the only home he had ever had? He could not trust him, even though he was trying to win him as an ally. Nordstedt was a Prussian, an enemy, about to take the city. And he might not accept Chateaupers's offer of a bargain. He might not become an ally after all. Suddenly the Phantom felt that he would be endangering the Opéra Populaire if he gave his true name and Nordstedt recognized it… and just then another slipped into his awareness, a name he had banished to the farthest place in his mind he had been able to find, together with those other stories. "Wraith," he finished.

"How fitting," Nordstedt remarked. "Did you just make that up?"

"Old nickname," the Phantom said darkly. In a way, it was – but he refused to believe it was.

And if Nordstedt showed one more hint of sarcasm, he would… do nothing. He was not supposed to harm him, and it would be rather unwise to do so in the middle of an enemy camp, even though he might have a good chance of slipping out.

Oh, _damn_. This was not going the way he had hoped it would.

"And you've probably come to carry another letter back past the watchers on the defences, am I correct in this assumption?"

"Exactly." So read that accursed letter, damn you!

"Well then." Nordstedt sat down on a foldable chair, by a map-strewn, rickety table in a corner which held a lantern, but so that he could keep an eye on the Phantom, and broke the seal at last. "I can't guarantee it won't take long; if this is a serious offer, I might have to consult with others first, and it does not seem an easy matter to me. For that time, you're my guest, and we'll find you accommodation somewhere where you can rest, and for your horse as well."

"Thank you. But how do you know I came on a horse?"

Nordstedt looked up from the sheets of paper filled with Chateaupers's neat handwriting, smiling. "You smell of horse."

Ah. Not unexpected, of course, but maybe he should be careful the next time; it might spoil his dramatic entrance a bit. "If you can't answer it tonight," he changed the topic, "I'll have to wait for tomorrow night to get back." The night was his time, after all, the time when he was strongest.

"Agreed. I'll finish reading this – I must say it caught my interest – and then provide quarters. I might need you later on, though, when I discuss the matter with my staff. They'll want to hear about the situation in the city first hand. Say," he asked, lowering the letter once again, "do you know anything about the city's defences?"

The Phantom shrugged. "Certainly not everything, but I might know a few important details – if I'm ready to tell you, that is."

This time, Nordstedt truly smiled. "I might have taken you for a common traitor if you had answered any differently."

The Phantom was not sure how to take this, but he answered the smile. It was best for all involved, certainly.


	24. IV That Shape in the Shadows

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: At_ _last, more time. I passed my Civil Litigation exam today with good marks, so there'll be more updating now. (If you review, that is…)  
For this chapter, I thank Professor Manfred Hochmeister of the Institute of Forensic Pathology of the university of Vienna for the valuable information on how long the marks of hanging will show up after a man's death; he was present as an assistant in the experiment described in that chapter, as it was conducted by Professor Dirnhofer from Berne, back in the 80s (no, scientists did not know of this back in 1870 actually, but never mind, Maurice is a clever man, after all…). He was kind enough to grant me a private little interview after a lecture even though he had enough t do still.  
jtbwriter: I'm glad to hear it's believable, I always wonder whether I'll manage to pull stuff off believably.  
Beregond's Girl: Ah, good. Then Créon holds no more terror for you, right? The pronunciation problems seemed very plausible to me, because it's that way with me with English often enough. Ah yes, I wanted to make Nordstedt impressive and at the same time likeable. As for the bit about Nordstedt's right hand remaining on the sabre hilt while he accepts the letter with his left: No, it's no error, and he wears the sabre on the left side – otherwise it wouldn't be a threat, since you can't draw a sabre properly with the hand on the side where you wear it. His right hand remains on the left side while he holds out his left, so he is forced to cross his arms, so to say. But thanks for being nitpicky; I should have specified probably. I wasn't very clear.  
Pertie: The mind connection still works, though with a greater distance the awareness of each other is weakened. You'll learn more about Nordstedt later on… after all, he's high up on the "cast list", isn't he?  
Autumn smell: Hello, thanks for reviewing, and thanks for the sympathy. There'll be more of Hugh Jackman and his ferret friend in this chapter, so have fun…  
Bea: Missed an update? Really? Well, you're forgiven this time. (lol) You know, you said something very clever in that review, something I would turn into a spoiler if I said anything more…_

-.-.-

**IV. That Shape in the Shadows**

"If you haven't guessed this is about last week's murders, you're stupid." Delannay always thought that being blunt when opening a discussion with people he did not like could be useful sometimes. It certainly was unexpected.

Madame Giry snorted, and Delannay had to restrain himself not to bellow any kind of insult at her. One day, this woman was going to get into trouble… and sooner than later, if she did that one more time.

The managers just looked at him blankly, though he was certain he could detect nervousness on André's features and in his bearing. And Reyer wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Precisely as he wanted them, those three.

And now, another surprise attack. "Tell me, do you still believe in the Opera Ghost?"

They all nodded in unison, though the woman more decidedly than the three men. Of course, they would stick with their silly story.

"Allow me to introduce Maurice Bracy." He nodded towards the man standing beside his desk and was a little disappointed when Bracy did not acknowledge at the slightest that he had not given his stupid nobleman's name quite correctly. No matter, though. That Bracy did not look like a nobleman at all with his shoulder-length dark hair and his rough black coat, and he did not behave like one, too, he was quite direct. And that little beast – some kind of weasel, perhaps? – poking its nose out of his coat pocket certainly was unconventional. "He's from the criminal police, and he's the one handling our case."

Murmurs and nods of greetings were exchanged, none of them very enthusiastic. Delannay almost smiled at that.

"So we have a trail to someone already?" Firmin asked, and Delannay suddenly suspected the man was pretending to be more stupid than he really was. He might have nothing to do with those murders of his men… but then again, he might…

"I'm saying nothing as yet," Bracy answered calmly. "Monsieur Delannay wants me to fill you in on some of the finer details, though."

Did they look eager? The conductor rather appeared scared, and Firmin's expression certainly was faked. No normal man's corners of the mouth could go that far down! But André looked genuinely curious, it seemed. Madame Giry's features were unreadable, though. Damn that woman! Back then when they had followed his summons to this office the first time, it had been her as well who had caught his attention by her behaviour – and who had played that trick with that one invisible tenor on him, however she had done it. He would not forget that.

But he would yet have his chance to take his revenge. He only had to wait for the right occasion, and then… one word from him, and she would be dead. It was a very satisfying concept. And while he was at it, he might get rid of Firmin as well. And of Chateaupers, but that was an entirely different matter. And he might substitute Bracy for Chateaupers if the man's work continued to convince him.

The worse for LaCroix, he thought, scrubbing a hand through his close-cropped blond bristles, already thinning at the front of his head. But LaCroix should see that he could not have everything.

When Delannay said nothing, Bracy continued. "As you probably know, five of Monsieur Delannay's guardsmen were found dead in the auditorium, dangling from the chandelier by their necks, to be precise." He spoke quite matter-of-factly, as if explaining the rules of a card game. "It's a peculiar case in many ways, but first things first. Apart from their being hanged, three of those five show wounds in the region of the heart, unusually deep and narrow, as if stabbed forcefully with a weapon in the form of a stick. One of those three additionally has a broken neck and several other fractured bones as well as internal injuries, which leads our physicians to the assumption that he fell from some height, though we cannot determine whether it happened before or after his death. In those three cases, it seems that the wound in the chest was lethal, and we tend to assume that their bodies were hanged after they were dead. The other two, however, show no serious injuries apart from the mark the rope left around their necks. All bodies bear a handful of scratches and similar, which probably come from their being dragged to the place where they were found."

"So you mean to say that they all were not, in fact, killed in the auditorium." Somehow, André seemed relieved. _Relieved_? Was it a sacrilege to kill someone in the auditorium, or what? Oh, those crazy, crazy opera people!

"We tend to believe that none of them were."

Now this was a point on which Bracy had not elaborated the day before, when he had first presented his results to Delannay. "Wait," he interrupted. "That they were dragged does not necessarily mean they were dead, especially in the case of those two otherwise unharmed men." He wrinkled his nose at André for a moment for being illogical, and in response the little man's bushy grey eyebrows went downwards as he scowled back at him. "Yet you say that they all were? Why? You did not say so yesterday."

Bracy raised a hand in what seemed to be an assuaging way, but which came across as a lazy gesture at the same time, however he managed that. Maybe the arrogance of nobility had not entirely left him. "Certainly you are right, Councillor Delannay." It was the first time he used a title when addressing him, Delannay noticed. Could it be that he did so because he would have to admit a mistake? "The reason is that we did not know one thing yesterday, which we know now. You see, I took the liberty of arranging a little experiment. I had my men bring in the bodies of a handful of men freshly executed and ordered them hanged."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Reyer, and André's eyes widened. Firmin's steel-grey eyebrows wandered downwards as his features formed a scowl at what he had just heard. Madame Giry's expression, serious yet calm, did not change, though. Could that woman never be unsettled? "What did you go and hang dead bodies for?" Delannay asked sharply, sharper than intended because of his slight annoyance at the ballet instructor's lack of reaction.

Bracy could not be unsettled just as well, it seemed. "To prove whether a man who is already dead will show the marks of hanging, and for how long after his death this will still work. Our physicians came up with the theory that it might be possible, and since it is very important for this case, I had them try it out. And we came to the conclusion that those five men murdered last week most probably were all dead _before_ their bodies were hanged – or hung, in that case." For a moment, his lips shifted into an unpleasant little smile, and Delannay had to admit to himself that he was quite impressed by the police officer's unemotional, scientific approach; when merely thinking of how those killings had happened, a slight shudder caught him. "It took the murderer half an hour at the most, because this is the time we measured in our experiment. We must assume that they were all killed in the main staircase, where traces of blood were found, and that they were then dragged along to the auditorium; we can follow the trails of blood as well here.

"Why they were killed," he continued after a brief pause in which he scratched the thing peeking out of his coat pocket between the tiny ears hidden under the fur, "we cannot say with certainty, except that the murderer in question intended to kill only one man, most likely, and that the others, who were on duty nearby, were alerted by either his calls for help or else the sounds of combat, though there does not seem to have been much combat in the case of the men with those narrow stab wounds."

And what a stealthy man this murderer must be, Delannay thought, an unpleasant feeling of chill creeping along his spine. He had killed all those five guardsmen on his own… But there was a loophole in the policeman's logic, Delannay noticed, and a large one. "And how, in your opinion, did those two men otherwise unharmed die, if not by hanging?" One of them had been one of his personal bodyguards, damn it! And bodyguards did not die so easily!

"It is a mystery not entirely solved," Bracy replied calmly, "but it has occurred before. And it identifies the murderer, just like the wounds do."

"So you know who did it, then?" Delannay interjected. He would have the swine shot, and then hanged when he was dead! Or hung, in that case, he thought grimly. Dead meat is hung, after all, as Bracy just reminded us…

"We are pretty sure, yes, and it all fits. We know that the murderer in question is unusually strong, because the traces of blood in the corridors show that he dragged along two bodies at once, one in each hand, and a corpse is not a light thing to carry. And he only put them down for a longer time, it seems from the traces, at their destination, so he could return to get the rest, though we don't know whether he got all three remaining bodies at once or went twice more. And as I said, he only had half an hour for all that. This leads us to the assumption that he is male."

"Obvious," Delannay grumbled. "Why would a woman kill anyone?"

Bracy smiled. "Oh, never underestimate women, Monsieur Delannay. Some will kill you as soon as look at you." He flashed Madame Giry a grin, and the ballet mistress rolled her eyes at him. At least _some_ reaction from her. "We had many cases already in which the murderer was a woman, and not only murders by poison. Women who stabbed their husbands, for example."

"Very well." That was not a pleasant idea. Suddenly Delannay was very glad indeed that he had never married. "Continue."

"Our murderer also knows his way around in here very well," Bracy went on as if he had never been interrupted. "For example, how many know how to get up to the chandelier? A couple of stagehands, no more. Besides, the door to that little room above the chandelier might have been locked, but we can't ascertain that, since the testimonies of the stagehands we asked differ on that matter. Moreover, he is a very agile man. From where precisely the ropes were placed, we tried to reconstruct how he did it, and we came to the conclusion that he had to perform a handful of dangerous climbing tricks, each time while carrying one of the bodies, since the ropes are not long enough to allow them to lie ready above while he affixed the ends. And once again it is the traces of blood that tell us that it truly was done that way, and that the chandelier was not lowered to the auditorium floor, which would have been easier, but apparently more bothersome for our murderer. Besides, he most probably was alone, and it is practically impossible for one single man to work all the mechanics involved to lower the chandelier all at once. So he chose to come from above and climb around it, part of the time probably hanging head down while tying the knots. And, surprisingly, the chandelier suffered no damage at all, so he did not only know how much weight it would support, but also at which points – where it was safe to hold on while he climbed."

"One of your employees," Delannay shot at the stony-faced managers. "I'll have them all shot!"

"Oh, he's not precisely an employee," Bracy put in easily. "But we'll come to that. His choice of weapons is another hint. From comparison with previous cases, all attributed to the same man, we know that those wounds were made by arrows."

"You can't be serious," Delannay broke in. Oh, how he hated it all, this mad murder story and this crazy place! "Nobody uses arrows nowadays."

"_Almost_ nobody," Bracy corrected, as calm as ever. "This one man does, and they do have advantages. A bow is a very quiet weapon, and nonetheless efficient. Besides, with a little skill you can make all you need yourself."

Still a primitive thing, in Delannay's opinion. He would not fear a man who still used bow and arrows, even if he succeeded in killing with them! "So how do you explain the other two victims?" he demanded, growing a little impatient. If Bracy had a name to put to this mysterious killer, why couldn't he just give it?

"As I said, it's a mystery how he does it." Why was Madame Giry looking so peculiar, so disgustingly… knowing? Did she perhaps know anything she shouldn't? Was she involved in this? "People sometimes say it's the fire of his eyes that kills, which is, of course, superstition, but one of our physicians has recently been wondering if a man can die of terror."

"Terror?" It did not sound very likely. "Of the murderer?"

"Yes, indeed. He can be quite terror-inspiring. I know many who are mortally frightened of him."

Delannay suppressed a snort. People and their superstitions! "So who is this scary man who can make men drop dead by just looking at them?" He had a very nasty suspicion what the answer would be…

Bracy's face betrayed nothing, and neither did Madame Giry's. "He is most commonly known as the Opera Ghost, Monsieur Delannay."


	25. V You always knew

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here's your update. And let's strike a little bargain, shall we? Five reviews and I'll hurry to bring up the new chapter, more and I'll hurry even more. Agreed? And I'll make my Erik answer your reviews, just like my friend CC (Silent Phantasy on this site) does with her Erik. How's that? And for those who want to earn themselves a special private Erik purr… a few lines in these chapter are a result of my sister listening to her precious Hugh Panaro on my computer while I was writing it. Find the lines and name the song and the show it originates from, and the Angel will be pleased with you. Have fun.  
jtbwriter: Of course Delannay will yet have to pay. But this will take some time, I'm afraid…  
Beregond's Girl: Odd looks? You should have seen my mother's face when I decided to sing along to "Stars" from Les Mis was a good idea… obviously she did not like the idea of falling as Lucifer fell much… But back on topic. I used that build-up on purpose, of course (duh…), and that Maurice was telling Delannay all that stuff quite calmly is meant on the one hand to describe him, on the other… well, he knows perfectly well what he's dealing with and it doesn't scare him one bit, obviously… now which side is he on? Yes, and you're definitely Erik-affected!  
Pertie: This chapter should answer your question. No need to worry.  
Morleigh: Two reviews to answer at once. Yes, César is allowed some character, too. He's the Phantom's horse, after all. ;) Madame Giry could make me nervous, too, I think. Especially when she swings her cane about…  
Dern: Oh, look who we have here! Valjean, at last we meet each other plain... right, sorry.  
Bea: Whoa, surprise. (lol) Yes, in general I do enjoy researching. I could not find one bit about what precisely those defences looked like, and my dad couldn't help me either, though I asked him about it with some persistence, so we went on to discuss Gambetta and his balloon excursions from the opera house roof. Ear-boxing? I might be able to arrange that…_

-.-.-

**V. You always knew**

Curse you, Chateaupers! Silently snarling defiance at the city defences, those pits and barricades and attempts at ramparts, the Phantom moved further into the shadows. César was waiting at a little distance; he wondered how he should get him here quickly enough if he found an opening at last to slip through the guards' hands unnoticed, but if he called him here right now, he would surely be discovered immediately.

Damn, damn, damn.

But he _would_ get back in, and if he had to bare-handedly strangle every single man guarding that gate!

Though it was not very likely that he would succeed in that, to be honest.

Like a roaring furnace, the anger inside him shot up hot sparks that made his blood boil. At this moment, he hated everyone, everyone behind this thrice-accursed gate.

Except Christine, of course. Christine, the sweetest, fairest girl he had ever seen, the most angelic being in the world. Right now, she was sleeping peacefully; he could clearly feel it, and despite the rage boiling inside him it made him smile to himself. He could almost see her, stretched out on her back and with her eyes closed, her dark tresses spread out on the pillow around her, and for a moment he wanted nothing but sit there and stroke her hair while she slept.

Then a sudden gust of cold wind hit him where he was crouching, and he pulled his cloak around himself tighter, muttering a curse. He was used to the cold, but at least there was no biting wind in his lair. And if it grew too cold for him down there, he could always crawl under his blankets. The idea of maybe having to spend the entire night out here was a highly unpleasant one.

Hell consume him alive, he had to get back in! He had to! And not only because he could feel the folded-up message against his thigh. Automatically he patted his trouser pocket as if to check whether it was still there, although he could feel it was without reaching for it. He did not know its exact contents, but he had a pretty good idea what this was about: instructions, and demands for more detailed information. It seemed that Nordstedt's staff had liked the idea of a messenger regularly getting in and out of the city, and if he could not provide the information they needed, well, then he would have to go back to the heavily guarded city to collect it for them. Damn them, who did they think he was, a dog? Slipping in and out of his hut at his master's call? He had hinted that those errands were bothersome. But they had ignored it. He had clearly stated it. But they had refused to listen. Instead, they had wondered in his presence to what kind of other uses they might put him as well.

At least he had gotten a few hours of rest, too, in a tent Nordstedt had provided, on a hard thing not really deserving the name mattress and wrapped in an itching woollen blanket, but at least it had been undisturbed rest. And at least the nightmares had not come this time. His dreams had been strange and disturbing, but they had had nothing to do with Créon and his stories. When Nordstedt himself had woken him, two hours ago it might have been, he had at least felt more or less rested.

And he would get quite enough rest soon, he thought bitterly, if he did not manage to come up with some idea of how to slink past those guards in a matter of a handful of hours. Getting out had been much easier, though still very troublesome; nobody had expected anyone to slip out, which had helped. But they all were expecting somebody to slip in, and the defences had been made so that it was highly difficult, with many guards – he could see the specks of light when he closed his eyes – making it practically impossible. Climbing over the ramparts was out of the question, there hardly were any footholds; and he would be seen, there was light spilling over the defences' crowns from a large number of lanterns. If it were just him alone, it might work, though, if he was careful, but with César… And he certainly would not leave the horse behind.

And if he manipulated one or two of the men to open the gate, he would catch the attention of lots of others, and he doubted he could enter their minds all at once without them raising the alarm first. He could control several minds at the same time, but it was difficult and dangerous, and when he closed his eyes, he counted over twenty men in his immediate proximity, and it was like that everywhere; he had tried several places already.

He should not have taken a horse, even if it meant walking over a considerable distance.

At least he could pass on the message, he thought, by telling Christine through their mental connection, but this was not much consolation to him.

Suddenly he became aware of someone approaching from behind, coming towards him. No, not only someone. Three. Three clear points of light in his mind, bright as beacons in the otherwise empty land just outside the city.

No, two. The third light with them was César. They had found his horse, saddled and only lacking the rider. Now they knew he was there.

Dropping flat on his stomach in the scarce, thin grass, he peered into the night. Until now, he could see nobody; he had left the horse rather far off. A spot of greater darkness maybe, the horse's shadowy outline, but he could not be quite sure; there was what could be considered a small forest right at César's back. A feeble attempt at a forest, perhaps, but its dark trees made silhouettes looming before it as good as invisible.

There was something else he could do, though. At this distance he could clearly tell both minds were human, and one even seemed familiar, while the other was a smoky outline somehow, but they were too far off for a clear take at them. Before he tried to enter those minds and maybe risked a mistake – not very likely, but ever since he had felt he had been a little clumsy in manipulating Delannay, he was uneasy about such things –, he could use César. Communicating with someone he had often communicated this way before was a lot easier; he knew the stallion's mind and found his way into it quite easily, even at this distance. Mentally patting the side of César's neck, he prompted for who was with the horse.

The reply came immediately, a mixture of images, sounds and smells, as always when César communicated with him in this way. Earlier on, the Phantom had sometimes been practically overwhelmed by the flood of information that came all at once, especially by the smells, which were mostly irritating to him, since he usually could not quite interpret their significance. But by now he had learned to delve through what César provided quickly enough, and he sorted out the images without truly paying attention to the rest. What he saw in his mind, through the stallion's eyes, were two faces, though one was dimmed, practically one with the shadowy background, while the other, sharp and clear, claimed all of César's attention –

Raoul! What in the name of Satan was _he_ doing out here? How had he managed to get out of the city? And why, why had he risked it, the foolish boy?

And who was with him? Already at the point of leaping up and running towards Raoul to keep him from walking straight before a rifleman's muzzle or similar, the Phantom forced himself to remain where he was. _Come on_, he urged César, showing him the image the horse had just let him see, _the other, who's the other?_ He concentrated on those features in the shadows, nudging César's attention towards them, to let them come into focus…

_Him._ Somehow, he was not even surprised. Only a tongue of flame, like the tongue of a whip, leaped up inside him, searing his insides with a brief flare of anger, a thin, sharp outburst, like a sabre blade. He had expected him to come. He had known he would. And now was just the perfect time for that particular acquaintance, it could hardly be a chance meeting. That bastard had come looking for him. And no doubt he had come because he somehow knew about those accursed nightmares…

But why was he not yet reaching out for him? The Phantom expected his mental touch any moment, and he steeled himself for the contact, to fight it off as violently as possible. But it did not come. He was waiting, it seemed. Just waiting.

And the boy was with him.

This thought was what made the Phantom leap to his feet at last and hurry into the night, away from the city walls and the dim hint of lights beyond them, towards where Raoul and César were waiting. And Aeternus.

He should have recognized the boy's presence earlier on, he reprimanded himself, though it would have made no difference really. Or would it? Hell, he could not let Raoul run around out there in the middle of the night! Raoul was a boy, curse him, little more than a child! And Christine would be so upset if anything happened to the little vicomte.

Soon he could see them clearly, all of them, and they grew clearer with every hurried pace he took. Stay where you are, kid, I'm coming for you! I'll save you from that accursed old manipulator's clutches, I will!

Oh, that idiot boy!

Noticing his master approaching, César whinnied softly, and the one shape the Phantom knew to be Raoul turned around suddenly, but Aeternus stayed where he was, calmly watching him. Aeternus had felt him coming, just as the Phantom could feel him in turn. They shared the same gift, after all.

The same gift, and the same curse.

"Erik!" It was evident that Raoul was trying hard to keep his voice down while at the same moment wanting to cry out with relief. "Thank God, I was so worried! We all were!"

"And what, Hell devour you, were you thinking, endangering yourself like that?" He spoke sharper than intended, but it served the foolish boy quite right. Sneaking out into the night just with that lunatic to keep him company! Of course, he did not doubt Aeternus was able to keep an eye on Raoul, but all the same, he did not trust Aeternus.

"All Christine said was that you were alright, but you were gone so long." Raoul continued as if he had not noticed that the Phantom had addressed him at all. "God, if anything had happened to you –"

"Stop fretting about me," the Phantom interrupted him sharply. "_Right now_." That silly little fop! Did he not realize what danger he was in?

And then Raoul did the most unexpected thing he could have done: He burst out laughing. Throwing back his head so that his hair, already long enough again to touch the turned-up collar of his dark jacket, flew as if the wind had caught it to play with it for a brief moment, he laughed, merrily, delighted as a child. "Man, Erik! A year ago, I would have never thought this possible. Funny, isn't it? And now you're upset over me worrying while you'll soon start fussing over me like a hen to get me back home safely! You crazy old villain, you!" And he slapped his shoulder playfully, beaming at him with all his boyish innocence.

Like a _hen_? Wait 'til I get you alone, kid, and I'll strangle you, I swear I –

Now what was that accursed Aeternus grinning at? Well, to be precise, he was smiling, but no matter what his expression was, he was not wanted here. "Come to stick your nose into other people's business again, have you?" he asked sharply.

Still Aeternus smiled; there was hardly anything that could wipe that stupid smile from his face, it seemed. "The cruel storm that tears at your tortured soul is strong enough to call me, and on it we were borne to find you."

The Phantom felt his lips compress all of their own accord. "I don't need help." As long as he could stand on his own, he was strong. As long as he could stand on his own, he would not fall.

"Some scars run deeper than you think."

"Not deep enough to break me." For if he did not believe it, he would not go insane. And as long as he held on to his sanity, he was not lost.

"Not if you don't allow them to, no. But it might become hard."

Facing Aeternus calmly, though inwardly he felt he was boiling, the Phantom made sure his mind remained inaccessible. Aeternus knew about these things, yes. They shared the same fate, after all – the Phantom's scar-distorted face and Aeternus's shrivelled-looking, blackened hand, the Phantom's mask and Aeternus's glove. They both had a disfigurement to hide. But he would not share anything else with Aeternus, not if he could help it. Aeternus had been with the Lost Ones, after all, with those who had come with Créon. True, he had betrayed Créon in the end, but this was not enough to make the Phantom trust him. Not enough by far. "How this tortured soul survives is my concern, and mine alone."

Aeternus's features were serious now, but otherwise unreadable, and when the Phantom met his eyes, he saw nothing but a veil of fog, gently swirling. Nobody could shield his mind like Aeternus. Unreadable, unexplainable, a figure of mystery made flesh. And there was nothing these features would reveal, these calm, utterly unnoticeable features, these cool, pale blue eyes under scarce eyebrows… And the smile had vanished, leaving no trace on those pale, thin lips surrounded by a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee. His face was nothing special, but still it managed to convey a strange sense of dignity, while at the same time betraying nothing, absolutely nothing of the man who hid behind.

As their eyes met, time seemed to stand still for a moment, everything revolving around the strange shapes that mist drew in the night, shapes that formed and dissolved again only to be forgotten forever, as if they had never existed… like everything, everything in this world…

"There is something I'd like you to learn," Aeternus said, and the spell was broken. The shapes of mist were gone, and only the night remained. "A little trick long forgotten."

"What is that?" the Phantom asked suspiciously. Oh, how he hated that man's constant attempts at a better air of mystery!

"Listen," Raoul interrupted, and the Phantom could clearly feel the uneasiness he radiated. Had he realized how he felt about Aeternus? Had he seen it in his face perhaps? In his eyes? Curse it all, he needed to learn to mask his feelings better! "We've got a pair of horses hidden a bit into the city, not far from here. Now we've found you, we'll get back home as fast as possible." The lad's breath misted before his lips. Autumn was growing colder; soon winter would come.

And what would become of the city then, besieged and left to starvation?

"Come," Raoul urged him. "We must be going."

Taking César's reins, the Phantom nodded. No point in standing around here. He would not escape Aeternus either way.

"Your young friend is a brave man," Aeternus said after they had quietly trudged towards the lights of the city for some time, their steps and the occasional snorts from the horse hardly loud enough to drown out the wind rustling in the grass. "On our way out here, I was delighted to learn a few things about him."

Immediately the Phantom stopped dead in his tracks, hardly feeling how César accidentally bumped into him. There was fire inside him. Fire and ice. "You stay out of his mind." Hell, he had rarely heard his voice go that cold!

"Oh, he did not need any… urging." Aeternus seemed completely undisturbed equally by the Phantom's tone and the wind; the Phantom could not have said which of them seemed colder – oh, to Hell with it, what was he wondering about such pointless things for? Hands held loosely by his side, Aeternus sauntered along as if taking a walk, and when the Phantom started towards the city's light again at an accelerated pace, he followed easily.

"We weren't talking about anything interesting, anyway," Raoul put in. Walking between the others, his eyes flickered between them as if he expected them to jump at each other' throat any moment. His hands deep in the pockets of his jacket, he held his head lowered against the biting wind, which played with his hair. "It was of no importance."

Aeternus made a lazy gesture as if to wave it away. "To me, it was. You think I inquire about things that do not interest me?"

Raoul shrugged. "Out of politeness, perhaps? It's what smalltalk is about, really. Most people don't give a damn about what you say, they just hope the time 'til supper goes by more quickly this way. The next day, they don't remember a bit."

Inwardly, the Phantom smiled to himself. The boy was picking up things from him.

"Expect me to remember everything, Raoul de Chagny, second lieutenant aboard the _Rights of Man_ as well as of the fifteenth cavalry regiment, fiancé of Christine Daaé and friend of Roger de Castelot-Barbezac, Maurice de Bracy and little Meg Giry, as well as of our companion here."

Raoul laughed softly, a sound that could almost have been a sob in the darkness. "Yes, that about sums it up."

In the Phantom's opinion, Raoul had better kept silent, but at the moment there was something else on his mind. "We're coming into eyeshot," he remarked.

"Into _your_ eyeshot, perhaps," Aeternus stated, squinting ahead into the night. "Don't worry, I've got everything under control. They can't see us yet."

"You mean you're –" Curse him, over that distance? Of course, those points of light were easy to locate, but to take over their minds from here…

"Just peeking." The Phantom was not looking at him, but he knew from Aeternus's tone that the unwelcome visitor was smiling. "You'll learn, eventually."

The Phantom shrugged. Eventually, yes. But right now…

"It's the doubts, isn't it? You've started to doubt yourself, and suddenly you can't do any longer what you think you could earlier on."

Again the Phantom was at the point of stopping short, but he clenched his teeth and strode on, ignoring César's gentle snort of protest as he tugged at the reins harder than necessary. Damn Aeternus! How did he know that? How could he, possibly?

"Just a guess." There was a brief pause. "Oh, and that last question was written plainly on your face. Sometimes there's no need to enter a mind."

"Yes, you better had not try it," the Phantom grumbled, viciously kicking a stone out of his way. He felt foolish, like a silly little boy.

"At the moment, I have other things in mind." Aeternus laughed softly, and the Phantom thought of strangling him with some longing. "Like showing you a trick you need to know to get back in."

Once again the Phantom could have strangled him. Curse him, why did he always have to know? Through gritted teeth, he replied, "Show me, then."

"Agreed." Aeternus had stopped, facing the Phantom, and Raoul took a step back so the two of them could stand face to face. "But first… try to forget all your recent doubts. Remember your old confidence. You used to know you could do anything. You always knew. Try to remember that. Remember who you really are, who you always knew you are."

The Phantom nodded impatiently, holding his cloak around himself as another gust of cold wind tore at it, trying to convince himself that he did it in case anyone on those defences might see it flap, not because of the biting cold. How much he wanted to be back in his warm bed, with Christine near him… and Claire Giry could make him a cup of hot tea, while he was at it. Or hot coffee, perhaps. Claire could brew the most wonderful coffee.

"Then let us proceed." Reaching up, Aeternus smoothed his hair, yet the Phantom noticed that it did not need any smoothing. It seemed that this was just a gesture Aeternus had taken on because he had noticed it was done, not because he found it necessary. Like some unearthly creature pretending to be human. For it was just pretending, nothing more. "Tell me, my shadowy friend… when you close your eyes, what can you see?"

"The same as you, most likely," the Phantom replied impatiently. No drama now, thank you very much. He was not in the mood. Moreover, he did not wish to discuss anything he might share with this man. Aeternus had helped him, yes, but Aeternus had been with Créon, and there was nothing he wanted to have in common with Créon. Nothing.

His eyes found Raoul's, and the boy offered him a tentative smile. He radiated confidence, confidence in him. And a sense of camaraderie that made the flames in his chest diminish and burn low for a moment, gently, so gently. This was something he owed to Créon, perhaps. If not for Créon, he and Raoul might never have come to know each other as they did.

Not that this would upset him very much, really. Certainly not. Of course not.

"Close your eyes, then." Aeternus's voice was soothing, as if he spoke to an uneasy child. "See the lights. Feel them."

The Phantom nodded impatiently, a violent jerk of his head. Even with his eyes closed, the lights of the city were still there, only that it was lives he saw now. Souls. He inhaled deeply, sucking in the cold night air, and as he blew it out again, he reached out along with the breath escaping him, with many thin, tender tongues of invisible flame, clear before his inner eye, crisscrossing like a spiderweb…

"No, not that." Aeternus's voice seemed to come from far away, but at the same time the Phantom knew that he was standing closely beside him. "The Web is good for spying, and for letting it just lie as a trap, but not for the manipulation of many minds. It's too complicated for that purpose, it takes up too much concentration. You'll need something else."

As the threads winked out, leaving glowing residues in the Phantom's mind for a moment, he briefly wondered how Aeternus could possibly know what he had been doing. But then he remembered that he could feel another's laid-out net of mental tendrils just as well. The threads of darkness he had called them as Créon had spread them out through the Opera House. The threads of darkness. He had felt them without knowing what they were, but then, later on, he had understood, and he had burned them with his own threads of fire.

The Web. He had not known that name. But it felt right, just the name that fitted them… and somehow, just as if he had always known this was the name for them…

"Good. Now." Aeternus's voice became a whisper. "Picture a cloud. A large, dark cloud. Like a blanket. Become the cloud. Be one with it. Spread out over the sky."

_Spread out over the sky?_ Now this was the craziest thing he had heard in some time! And this with counting all that Communard rubbish from Delannay and the other intruders. For an instant he considered snarling at the unwelcome visitor, but then he pulled himself together. He might as well give this a try. After all, somehow Aeternus must have gotten into the city earlier on. Somehow. Maybe this was the correct way.

Telling me your little secrets, Aeternus, are you?

Fine. He was a cloud, floating like a silly searose leaf on a silly pond, but the pond was the sky, the sky strewn with gleaming shards of icicles that were stars… Strange, but he did feel very light suddenly. Or maybe he was just imagining things. But the lights were clear still, before him as well as, in some strange way, below him… _Below_ him? He did not see them from above, but all the same, he had the strange feeling that he might be floating above them… and it felt so natural…

"Ready? Then lower the cloud onto them. Gently. Like putting a veil over them, so they grow dimmer. Slowly, carefully…"

So _this_ was how it worked. Suddenly the Phantom realized what he had to do. And suddenly it seemed very obvious. Why hadn't he thought of this before? So simple, so logical… and as if he had known it all along… Imagining to spread a blanket over the lights, a blanket thin as cobwebs, he thought to see their glow grow dimmer, though just by a tiny bit…

"And remember: _you_ are the cloud."

Yes, it was him. The shadows lurking inside his own mind. The blanket became part of himself, and gently, very gently, he touched the nearest lights, and slowly they dimmed, their radiance shorn, as those guardsmen's awareness was gently dimmed…

"Now," Aeternus said, and it seemed from his tone that he was pleased. "Open your eyes again, but keep that feeling. Keep your concentration. It's time for us to go."


	26. VI Breathing Lies

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: You got lucky, here's your update. Well, I did get more reviews than normally. You see, that works on me. And I'll nudge my Erik to add a few notes to this.  
PhantomKiss: Often it's such unremarkable thoughts like this that come to you in the most unusual situations, I noticed. And yes, they give the picture more depth, so to say. (Erik: Duh. That boy adores talking about his little narrative tricks…)  
Beregond's Girl: Yes, I've got a bloody crazy Panarophile for a sister. Did your friend find the lines? Otherwise, I can tell you if you want. As for how Raoul got out of the city, I thought it was obvious, but maybe I should have specified: Aeternus arrived at the opera, where he let himself be informed of what was going on, then snatched up Raoul and followed his awareness of the Phantom, using the trick he shows to leave the city. I assumed it could be deducted easily enough, so I did not elaborate, sorry if it was not very considerate of me. (Erik: Whoever told you I like Raoul?)  
Pertie: Well, sometimes it's really useful to be a Lost One, that's all I'm saying… (Erik: No, I want nothing the kid has… damn, you've got me there…)  
jtbwriter: No, Raoul can't feel what goes on between the others, he still has to act using his instinct. But Erik can feel what he's feeling if he wants to, of course. (Erik: Because I'm so much better than you, kid… Hey, you there, enjoy being talked to?)  
Dern: You must think me mad! I've hunted you across the years, a man like you can never change… Right, sorry. Funny, the animals in this story seem so strangely popular. And so is Raoul… Yes, there will be more tricks to amuse you. (Erik: No, Hell consume you alive, I don't like Raoul! … YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS! COME WITH ME; 24601!)  
Bea: Actually, that I picked Gary Oldman for Aeternus did have some influence on the character, which did not happen with any other. Funny. (Erik: You want to take me home, eh? Aww, I feel loved!)  
Morleigh: There'll be a lot more original characters later on. Everybody on that list will yet turn up eventually._

-.-.-

**VI. Breathing Lies**

"Meg!"

"C'mon, don't be so boring!"

"Meg, for goodness's sake!"

Planting her fists on her hips, the blond ballerina swivelled around on the spot. She gave a very good imitation of her mother, Christine thought. "Raoul is in there! Don't you want to see what he's up to?"

"But we can't go in _there_," Christine insisted. "It's not proper."

"And Erik and Roger and Gaston and Serge. And Maurice, probably." Meg did not heed her last comment at all. "Of course we can. Besides, the carriage only just left, in case you didn't notice."

Christine sighed. Yes, the carriage was gone. And the look the driver had given them… If Meg's mother ever found out about this, she was going to _kill_ them! "We'll just find another carriage," she said firmly. "Meg, this is nothing for us. This is for men. Girls are not supposed to go in there."

"So what?" Meg shot back at her defiantly. "And what's Raoul doing in there, eh? Aren't you wondering?"

"Actually, yes," Christine admitted. She really did not like the idea much, but all the same… "We really can't, Meg. It's not decent."

"Fine," Meg snapped. "When you're not coming, I'm going in alone."

"_Meg!_"

But it was too late already. Meg had marched straight through the doorway hung with curtains of purple velvet, grinning at the two porky men standing guard at the entrance, who grinned back, and disappeared into the twilight of what lay beyond. Biting her tongue not to cry out with exasperation, Christine took a deep breath, then dived after her, trying to ignore everything around her. She was sure she was blushing crimson; her cheeks felt as if they might glow brightly. And she was sure those two men at the door were smirking after her now; she could practically feel their eyes on her.

Realizing she could not rush on like this without crashing into furniture or something equally embarrassing, she stopped sharp, hastily taking in her surroundings.

"And?" Meg whispered, turning around to her, in her voice too much delighted excitement to be proper. "What do you say now?"

"So _this_ is where Raoul and Erik have been going all the time?" Christine let her eyes rove over the brightly clad dancers swaying to and fro, the young girls flitting around between the tables, and the many men, most of them elegant, but also most of them clearly drunk and laughing raucously. "Lord in Heaven!"

The wide, somehow rather low-ceilinged room was lit by dangling ornamental lamps, which cast an oddly reddish sheen over the tables beneath them, and by gilded candelabras. The latter's golden, but strangely flickering light strongly reminded Christine of the first time she had descended to the Phantom's lair, on that night when she had taken his hand and stepped through the mirror into a dream.

A dream which had become a nightmare later on. When looking back on this phase of her life, it seemed that she had gone through a dark corridor… and yet there had been light ahead. Looking back, she knew there had. She had not stepped out of it at once, but lifting veil by veil, until she was under the sun again. And then at last, the night when Créon had died, the night when she had stood by Erik to reclaim him for the light… on that night she had seen the stars again, and so had he. So had he.

And yet another shadow was claiming him again, a shadow she felt just as she had felt the taint of Créon's mind's touch on him, though this time it came from within him. This was the reason she and Meg had followed the men in the first place; it was silly really, but there was a concern on her mind apart from her fear of the Commune, that fear that had always been on her mind now for so many weeks: the lurking terror of what was being unleashed down in the dark recesses of Erik's mind. For this reason, she somehow felt she should not leave him out of her reach for too long. Not that she could truly help him, but he was calmer in her presence, so much calmer, and she could soothe the agonized reeling of his thoughts.

Hold on, Erik. You're not losing yourself yet. Not yet.

Catching up with Meg, who had stopped just ahead of her to scan her surroundings with obvious curiosity and find her friends, Christine hoped to catch a glimpse of Raoul somewhere, and she fervently hoped she would see him soon. The room was not overly crowded, but still there were enough people in it, mostly men, but also women of slightly doubtful appearance, to make it difficult to find whom she was looking for quickly. It seemed to her that everybody was staring at her, and she felt pearls of moisture forming between her shoulder blades, but did not dare to remove the wide shawl she had wrapped around her shoulders for fear that some of these men might understand her gesture as some kind of indecent invitation. Heavens, what kind of place was this? She had realized it was something where she should not be when they had climbed out of the carriage and she had seen the entrance before her.

God, how she wished Meg had never cleverly picked that card out of Roger's waistcoat pocket without him realizing it, how she wished she had never recognized her fiancé's handwriting on it, how she wished they had never in their childish folly decided to find out what kind of address this was precisely!

The music and buzz of voices all around her made her even dizzier than she already felt. They needed to leave, and as soon as possible! They could not stay here!

And Raoul… she would have a stern word with him, just like Madame Giry would if she were in her place. A very stern word. Going to a _nightclub_!

And with Erik, too. Not that she felt responsible for him, and not that she was jealous or anything along that line – she rather harboured that feeling about Raoul, though she still tended to believe in her fiancé's faithfulness – but this was foolish of him, incredibly foolish! Everybody would notice him. A masked man just did not go unnoticed. Everybody would know who he was. He was endangering himself, along with the others.

No, she would not flee now. She would ignore everybody around her and go and have a word with the men. She had to do this first.

And, God be her witness, this time she would tell them what a bunch of immature idiots they were! Yes, Raoul as well!

Steeling herself, she let her gaze follow her awareness of the Phantom… and met a pair of surprisingly green eyes looking down at her. "The Lord Phantom bids me escort you," Serge said with a hint of a bow.

"Great," Meg practically squealed and winked at a fat man at a table nearby who sported a ridiculously large turban. In response, the man's eyes bulged, and he waved his fat little hand at her frantically, beaming at her.

Christine groaned. What did Meg think she was doing? Did she really have to make this even more embarrassing than it already was?

As she followed the curly-haired stagehand past the tables, she kept her eyes firmly on his back to avoid facing all those men assembled here. She was sure they were staring at her, leering at her, and that girl who slipped past them in a provokingly low-cut dress was laughing at her…

There was applause around them as the music ended, but Christine did not turn her face towards the dancers again. She should not be here. They all should not be here. None of them.

Holding aside one of the heavy velvet curtains draped over practically every free space on the wall, Serge allowed them to slip past it, into a niche half hidden by the curtains, lit by a small candelabra which filled it with a strange kind of half-light. From in there, the view was open to the stage at the end of the room, but those sitting at the table half concealed there were hidden from most of the others, and those who could see them still would not see them clearly because this place was darker than most of the rest of the room.

"Surprise, kid," the Phantom stated dryly. He sat with his back to the wall, observing the dancers impassively, and his eyes gleamed strangely in the darkness.

"Christine!" From a seat opposite him, Raoul sprang up and ran towards her, caught her in his embrace and held her tight. How sweet he looked with his untidy, already too long hair falling to his collar in wild strands, and in his white shirt and unbuttoned crème-coloured waistcoat! All of their own accord, Christine felt her arms slip around him, all thoughts of scolding forgotten. When she was with Raoul, she was happy, wherever she was. And she was safe.

"We found you, you spoilsports!" Meg proclaimed. "You thought you could go out on your own, eh?"

"Boys' night, piglet," the Phantom replied lazily, in that tone which was always accompanied by one of his cultivated little smirks, and Christine could feel a sense of amusement entering the tense knot at the back of her head that was her awareness of him. They were not simply there to look at young women, it occurred to her. Not when he was feeling like that. She should have realized that before. They were not simply after some entertainment; they were… up to something.

"Jerk," Meg said tartly, then saw Roger waving at her merrily from beside the seat Raoul had vacated and waved right back, beaming at him. She really seemed to like Raoul's best friend from childhood days a lot.

Leaning against the wall behind the Phantom, both Gaston and Maurice greeted the girls with a polite nod and a smile. Then Maurice's eyes returned to the dancing girls, while Gaston's came to rest on the Phantom once more. Christine almost rolled her eyes at Gaston's devotion. Of course, it was moving, but still… it was just too much. He should stop this, for his own good.

Serge was less crazy there. It seemed to Christine that he was equally devoted, but in another way. While Gaston was openly idolizing an icon, Serge was quietly, modestly proving his loyalty.

"What have you been doing?" Christine asked Raoul quietly, gently holding him away from her a little, while Meg was already settling in on Raoul's chair, flicking something at Roger, which landed in his blond curls. From the corner of her eye, Christine saw how he began to wipe at his hair, giggling girlishly as he did so. That silly boy! That sweet, funny, silly boy!

Their eyes met, and Raoul's features became serious as he looked into his fiancée's face. "Listen," he said, softly and earnestly, "this is not just a night out partying. Maurice is doing _business_ here, you understand? He has his contacts here, his spies… And LaCroix comes here, did you know that?" His eyebrows descended suddenly as he spoke that name, and suddenly a shadow fell over his youthful face. "Maurice has his contacts keep a close watch on him. Besides, Erik is doing something utterly creepy he calls mind-filtering. He came up with that only something like ten days ago, about when we came back from outside. It was that Aeternus who gave him the idea, if you ask me. He was teaching him something, something I did not quite understand." Raoul shrugged. "Do me the favour and ask him, he won't explain." There was no trace of resentment or anything like that Christine could find in his features. Once again she wondered if he had really simply accepted her and the Phantom's strange connection. "Anyway, we'll be off home soon enough. You heard Meg's mother; they're checking the rooms."

Christine nodded glumly. And not only that. Part of the cellars had been searched, and most of the last week she had spent constantly on edge and snarling at everybody because she had not been able once again to keep the Phantom's anger from seeping into her. And it had done nothing for his temper when Madame Giry had placed her in a chorus girls' dormitory under a new identity, claiming that she was no longer safe in the cellars. Oh, how he had raged! But Madame Giry had stood her ground, and in the end he had agreed for the sake of Christine and her safety, but he had been in a terrible fury.

Raoul, too, had been placed upstairs under a new name. If they found him in the cellars, Madame Giry had reasoned, they knew he had something to hide. But if they found him in a normal room and with an inconspicuous name… nothing wrong with that. And after overcoming his foul temper more or less, the Phantom had made sure personally that Raoul was placed with the second violinists. He could play the violin, after all, even if not as well as a real musician, but he would not draw anyone's attention, like he would have if he had been hidden in the chorus or ballet, as the managers had suggested some time ago already.

And, of course, they had to pretend they did not know each other, which was quite a blow. But Madame Giry was right; they were only endangering themselves otherwise.

Oh, how she wished this were over, all of this!

And Erik… he was all on his own now once again, all alone in the darkness… He still had his connection to her, but all the same, after such a long time he had spent in company, didn't his lair feel empty now? Not even Senta was there any longer; she had moved to Raoul's parents, to Chateaupers's house. And César stood in Chateaupers's stables now, because the Communards were using the Opéra Populaire's horses. Erik was on his own.

Not completely, though, since he still had their connection. Just as she had expected, it had not taken long until he had given her a tentative little mental nudge, close to a physical sensation but not quite. _Christine… I can't sleep…_ It had been rather sweet, really. And all the silly things he had said later on… _If I trained all the rats I can feel around me, they'd make a formidable army. Plus, it'd mean I'd beat Delannay with his own kind._ Strange how he could switch from dark and brooding to completely cheerful so quickly. Though his cheerfulness had been tinged a little with sarcasm last night. And deep down, the flame of his hatred was flickering, always ready to burst forth again…

"What is it?" Raoul asked, reaching up to stroke her cheek. "You were smiling at something just now."

"I was thinking of something funny Erik said last night," she answered truthfully. She never lied to Raoul. And this was no secret, so there really was no reason to worry. Well, he might be a tiny bit jealous, but still, why keep it from him?

"Oh, Erik." Raoul snickered softly. "Crazy as my old sergeant, the man, and with about equal morals. You know what he just did, the moment before you two came in here?" His face shone with boyish delight suddenly. "You see, we're sitting in here, doing nothing much and waiting for Millet – you know, Chateaupers's man – and then we see those two women walk by, painted like Piangi used to be on stage and waving their hips quite ridiculously, and Roger says, _Look at them, they've stuffed something down their dresses to get some more curves!_" Here Raoul grinned apologetically, but Christine did not mind. This was just what some of her ballet colleagues did, so she had heard of this countless times. "And then Maurice says, _Well, go and check, why don't you?_ And Roger replies, _You_ _crazy? They're bound to notice!_ Besides, it would have spoiled all of Erik's efforts to make us melt into the background, figuratively speaking… Anyway, suddenly Erik gets up, walks straight out and up to them with that funny look on his face, and suddenly they slow down and stop, looking like they've just had their mind wiped blank, and he saunters up to them, peeks down their cleavages, then goes back while they resume their walk as if nothing had happened, and he sits back down and says, _It's spotted handkerchiefs_." Raoul grinned broadly. "Now what d'you say to that?"

Christine shook her head in disbelief. "And _that_ is what he does when you're here for business, as you call it?" What a foolish, indecent, juvenile behaviour! But then again… in a way, it really was comical.

Raoul shrugged. "Maurice has had a word with all his agents, I think, including the courtesans, but Millet hasn't been here yet, and we might as well have fun while we wait. Not that _I_ did anything of the like," he quickly added as Christine subjected him to a stern scrutiny. "Come, sit with us." And he pointed to the one empty chair left, since Meg had taken his in his absence. "Maurice, you don't mind, do you?"

"What? No." Maurice was still watching the dancers, but Christine was certain he was paying attention to everything else around him just as well, including the ferret, which was climbing around in the hat he held in his hand.

As Christine sat down, thanking Maurice, Raoul stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. "We're going home soon," he muttered to her.

Home? Yes, that was good. Home was a good place to be going. They lived in separate rooms now, yes, and they had to pretend they did not know each other, but still it was better than this… or was it? Now she and Meg were sitting here with the men, she did not feel as uncomfortable anymore as she had felt when she had first come here. They sat in a private corner now, made even more private by whatever trick it was the Phantom was using on the other occupants of this room. They were on their own practically, even if this was a place where she wasn't supposed to be, and she could have Raoul with her. What more did she need?

Roger was drumming his fingers on the table, pulling them back just in time whenever Meg tried to slap them. The other men's attention was on the stage, it seemed, where the dancers had been replaced by a dark-haired young singer, a girl maybe a few years older than she was herself, and with a pleasant voice. No wonder the Phantom was observing her closely, Christine thought, he had a habit of looking at pretty young sopranos, after all… Some day she really ought to ask him if it was true what the Poussepain sisters had told her and several others about that business in their bedroom… They had been exaggerating certainly, but since Meg had confirmed that he sometimes slipped into her bed hoping for a snuggle, he might well have done the same with the Poussepain sisters a few times, and he might even have been a little… wilder, who knew?

"He's there." The Phantom spoke very softly, but rather sharply, so that Meg, who had been very occupied with paying attention to Roger's drumming fingertips, winced a little.

This time, it was Gaston who slipped out, and he did not wait for any orders. He went noiselessly, and in his dark clothes he blended well into the shadows. He and Serge always wore dark garments to show their loyalty. They had first worn black the day they had confronted Adhemar and Niobe and their henchmen at the Phantom's side, and then again when facing Créon.

"About time," Maurice muttered.

"Let's hope there's nothing wrong, he's never late normally." Christine could clearly hear the worry in her fiancé's voice, and she reached up to take his hand in hers. Why would Millet be late? Because something had happened to Chateaupers?

And if something had happened to Chateaupers, something might have happened to Raoul's parents as well…

The knot at the pit of her stomach tightened. It was always there, it had been there since a long time now, that constant fear, that dread of what might await her and those dear to her, but sometimes it suddenly clenched painfully, paralyzing and nauseating her. Drawing a deep breath, she tried to steady and calm herself again, and slowly the bands of cold iron around her insides melted away, leaving an uncomfortable sensation behind, like an icicle slipped from a hand raw from the winter's cold. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply once again. All she now saw was darkness, the gentle darkness before sleep comes, and a clear speck of light that was Erik.

Erik. Why had he not reached out to calm her? Normally he soothed her whenever she did not feel well, for whatever reason. Why was he so preoccupied? Opening her eyes again, she saw that he was gazing at the pretty young singer intently, but that could hardly be the reason. Or could it?

But just then Gaston returned with Robert Millet, and the shock at Millet's state drove all thoughts of the Phantom's peculiar behaviour out of Christine's mind. God, he seemed so gaunt and pale! He looked ill, ill and spent.

"Good evening," Millet muttered, not looking at anyone.

Maurice frowned. "Millet, what –"

"I can't stay," Chateaupers's servant interrupted, barely moving his lips. "They're watching me. I must go."

"They can't see you," the Phantom said gently. So he was paying attention to what was going on, after all. Yet still Christine thought to see his eyes flicker to the stage occasionally. "Here you're safe. The moment you passed this doorway, your enemies grew blind."

Millet let out a tortured breath, too weak to be a moan. "Master Phantom, your magic won't save me now…"

"Everything within these walls lies within my power." His eyes gleamed strangely as they reflected the dim light of the candelabras, and there was an eerie orange sheen cast over his mask, repeated in a glint down on his chest: His shirt was partially unbuttoned, and the silver pendant Raoul had given him was clearly visible now, a leering skull, its dark, empty eye sockets staring sightlessly into the void.

"Speak freely," Maurice assured Millet. "They can't hear you now."

"And Erik will bash out their brains if they try," Roger grinned, then returned to the activity of slapping Meg with his unslung scarlet silk cravat. Christine heard Raoul sighing softly behind her.

"Chateaupers is to be replaced," Millet said tonelessly.

"Which is not unexpected, what with the recent trouble he's been giving Delannay," Maurice stated dryly. "Only yesterday we were discussing this issue, him and me. I'm surprised he actually lasted that long."

"It's my fault partially," the Phantom put in darkly. "I should simply have thrown those bodies in the river, after decorating them with a couple of knife wounds in case they'd have been found."

"It's his own responsibility, and his own fault," Maurice corrected him. "He was free to choose. You told him yourself to share the more public files on you. He could have done so."

"He did it out of loyalty," the Phantom answered bitterly. "He considers himself bound to me. Another man I bring down because I failed at protecting him." Christine could feel the twinge of grief that shot through his overshadowed awareness like a whiplash, the memory of that unhappy young man named Jean Hulot who had given his life for him.

"He's not yours to protect," Maurice insisted.

"He is, as much as you are."

Shaking his head, Maurice laughed softly. "No. I can stand on my own, and so can he. I know what I'm playing at, and so does he. We are showing two faces, and one of them's a lie. It's an old game, a game every copper learns to play. Blimey, man, I'm an agent, just as Millet here, and that he's a common copper and I'm high up in the criminal police does not make a damn of a difference. I'm a spy as much as an officer. It's second nature to me. And it's the same for Chateaupers. Did you know that he was an active spy behind the barricades in 1848? He was but a lad then, and already he was wearing that varnish of lies. Every second word a lie, in the knowledge that one slip could be the end of him, with every breath he took… A man like Chateaupers has learned to breathe lies, my friend. He is ready to choose, and he knows what is at stake."

And isn't this what we are doing, Christine thought, breathing lies? Another name, another person… Everything has become a lie now back at the Opera House, everything we do. This is the only place where we are still honest, this of all places…

My God, we are losing ourselves more and more…

"Here, the last reports." During this discussion, Millet had rummaged in his coat pockets and now produced several slightly crumpled papers. "The last to be written."

"Ah, yes." Maurice accepted them calmly. "The last _of that kind_ to be written, Millet. Not that I don't trust my men, but reports on what's going on in the Commune Council and similar places are only to be given orally from now on. I'm afraid the other way is no longer safe."

"Evil times," Raoul murmured.

"There is no time so dark that it would extinguish the sun," Maurice said lightly. "Cheer up, lads. We're in a nasty fix, but that's no reason to abandon all hope."

"And yet there are times when all that's left for you is smoke and ruins, and above you the sky is on fire." The Phantom's voice was a rough whisper, coming from everywhere and seemingly echoing in this niche created by the heavy purple curtain. The image flared up unbidden before Christine's fluttering eyelids, the memory of a night not long ago when she had involuntarily shared the nightmare haunting him.

Silence fell between them, and the voices of all the jolly drinkers outside became a rough, crude noise, as ugly as a sound could be.

"And of course it's Erik who beats everybody else in drama!" Meg cried, her laughter merry and innocent. How should she know what it was like, that image that would never fade? "Congratulations, you morbid bullfrog, you!"

What had seemed impossible to Christine now really happened: Everybody laughed, including Millet, and even the Phantom smiled a little, though his smile appeared equally weary as Millet's laughter. Roger hit the table with his flat hand with glee.

"Now this is settled," Maurice remarked, depositing his ferret on the table, where it immediately poked its little head into the basket with baguette slices, "we might as well return to our topic. What I would be really interested in, Millet, is the current degree of infiltration, if you want to call it thus, as far as the common street reports are concerned. Apart from that, I've got a few pieces of information on LaCroix I just received from my agents here; I wonder what you'll make of it. And – Erik? Where are you going?"

Indeed the Phantom had risen to his feet and pushed back his chair. "I'll be back in a moment," he said curtly.

"Erik, I said _where are you going_, not _when will you be back_," Maurice insisted calmly. As the ferret tried to dip its nose into a glass of wine, he quickly snatched it up around the middle and placed it on his shoulder, its usual vantage point.

"Wouldn't really interest you," the Phantom grumbled. "I'll be back in a moment."

Maurice frowned. "Now listen here –"

"Look, I'm going to the bathroom, if it interests you so much," the Phantom snapped. "And no, it can't wait; I've been drinking too much for waiting. Don't mind me, I'll be back soon enough." And with this he slipped out past the curtain.

Heavens, did he really have to be that blunt? The remark about having drunken a bit too much would have been quite sufficient! But no, the Phantom did not care about etiquette, and whether things like this should be mentioned in company or not did not bother him at the slightest. Christine sighed inwardly. And he had a bad influence on Raoul as far as such talk was concerned, too.

"Yes, that's what he calls going to the bathroom," Roger commented, nodding towards the stage, which was once again filled with brightly yet scantily clad dancers. "There, look. He disappeared this way. I don't think he'll find one single privy over there."

"He's after the girl," Maurice stated.

"The little singer?" Raoul snickered. "Of course he is."

"Or he's going to the backyard," Roger suggested. "That's that way, I think." He grinned. "Wouldn't put it past him."

"No, he wouldn't," Gaston interjected hotly, puffing himself up with indignation.

"Anyway," Maurice said dryly, "the way to the backyard is past the girls' changing rooms. Which leads us to the same result."

"Don't believe anything bad of the Lord Phantom!" Gaston protested.

"Oh, that's not bad, necessarily." Maurice shrugged. "Just a bad time for it. However. Millet, if you would please continue. Sit down in his place, why don't you?"

As Millet took the Phantom's seat, hesitant yet glad to be able to lean on his elbows and rest his temples on his fists, Christine wondered where the Phantom had really slipped off to. Was he truly chasing after a girl when others were discussing the Commune's doings and secrets? He hated politics, yes, but would he really act like this? There was nothing she could learn through the bond they shared, nothing that would betray what he intended to do. Was he hunting a man again, perhaps, another helper of Delannay and the Commune? She could not tell.

But if this really was about the young singer… then he must be very interested in her. Very interested indeed.

Christine was not quite sure how she felt about this idea.


	27. VII Defenceless and silent

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the delay. I wanted to update yesterday, but was kept from it – blame my sister and Zorro, who was her helper in this…  
PhantomKiss: The first writer to influence me was J.R.R. Tolkien (and this story here truly has a heavy fantasy streak, blame him…), but the second was Terry Pratchett… so yes, those little jokes keep popping up. Sometimes I wonder whether they might be a bit out of place, but since my sister likes them I leave them where they are. No, the ferret is not supposed to have any significance, it's just part of Maurice, so to say. Feel free to tease my Erik, he deserves it. Oh, and don't say "Down, Erik!" or you get him started on Colm Wilkinson. Trust me, you don't want that. (Erik: Shut up, kid… Anyway, you can look down my cleavage all you like as I don't put stuff down it anyway. And cookies would be appreciated, and a snuggle even more so…)  
Pertie: You certainly have a point there. As for the purpose of going to a nightclub… well, Maurice has a good reason, as Raoul explains, and the rest is "in for the ride", mainly – apart from Erik, who seems to develop a habit of sniffling around on his own, but there will be more of that later on. (Erik: Sniffling?)  
Mlle O.G.: I hope you don't mind my abbreviation. Hmm yes, I've grown to amuse myself over writing chaotic love triangles (or worse than that)… There'll soon be more to suit you, since the next Book will be devoted to people's current love life… (Erik: I wish you would shut up about my love life for once, kid… Ah well, you're the author…)  
jtbwriter: That Meg is a bit naughty at times we knew already, but Christine can't be well-behaved all the time, now can she? (Erik: Of course I have a bad influence on Raoul. It's a hobby of mine.)  
Beregond's Girl: Yes, Raoul can play the violin, that's one of the Leroux influences here. And Erik is getting used to having people around him, but the rest of humanity… well, I'd rather not comment on it. (Erik: Of course I blame the Author Man. Oh, and he talks me into answering reviews, not the other way round. I'm not that much of a review-answerer normally, I'm just not used to it. I'm getting used to it, though. It can be pretty entertaining…)  
aragornnme: Ah, the Panarophile. Well, actually it's nothing to worry about that you didn't recognize it, since there's no recording yet. "You're already there" is not intended, since I don't know that one (my sister has it, though). The show is called "Lestat", the song in question is "Sail me away", the lines in question are _The cruel storm that tears at your tortured soul is strong enough to call me, and on it we were borne to find you, _soon after that_ Some scars run deeper than you think, _and a bit later on _How this tortured soul survives is my concern, and mine alone. _Check out panarophiles dot net, look for a girl who calls herself Celebwen and tell her that her brother sent you, and she'll educate you about that song, ok? She likes doing that… (Erik: She calls it Sweet Hughification… and she won't shut up about it…)  
Bea: Oh, Valencienne already got a Squee! Well, here you can Squee some more. Wow, someone who thought me capable of including a literary reference! But no, while I do know Dante's _Divina Commedia_, this one is unintended (I did stick a sign saying _Laciate ogni speranza, voi chi entrate qui _to the toilet door, though…). (Erik: Want me to show off my chest for you, eh?)  
Morleigh: Yes, a little spoiling certainly won't hurt… (Erik: No it wouldn't…)_

-.-.-

**VII. Defenceless and silent**

He had kissed her.

Leaning back against the wall of her changing room, for once ignoring the peeling paint which usually annoyed her so much when she had to brush it off her dress, Valencienne took a deep breath to steady herself. What an impetuous devil! She had had such visitors before, men who seemed interested in her and were not so subtle about this fact, but never anyone like this one. Heavens protect her, never a man like this.

Of course, such incidents came with her profession, or rather, with the place she was currently forced to work at, and she had gotten used to it more or less, though she still did not like it at all. If she were free to choose, she would turn her back on the Maxim rather sooner than later. It was no place for a decent girl.

The trouble was, she really had no choice. It was either the Maxim, until she found something better, or wandering the streets. If she wanted to stand on her own, then she had to stay. Otherwise, there were some distant relatives she knew of who might be of some help, but she had sworn to herself she would turn to them only in a situation of dire need, not out of pride, but because she felt it would shame her to be dependant upon people she scarcely knew who were not much better off perhaps. The Maxim was hardly the place she wanted to work at, but there could be worse. Much worse. She could be forced to become like many of the other girls here, for instance.

The mere idea made her shudder. To her, it did not make the slightest difference if they called themselves courtesans or were street whores. The girls insisted there was, but to her, it was all the same. Allowing herself to be dishonoured like that… She did not shy away from a man's touch, and she certainly would not say no to a private little chat with a charming lad, even if he came to her changing rooms, but there were lines she would not cross. Not if she would become an outcast from society otherwise. Whatever those girls told her about good earnings, she would not do any of _that_.

But this man… this man had been a wild one, and he had not quite seen the difference, it had seemed to her. He had just sauntered up to her, ever so slowly, and even though she had already been at the door of her changing room, he had managed to be faster somehow, yet without accelerating. Could she have stood frozen? She had wanted to hurriedly get out of his eyeshot, she was certain, away from that look he was throwing her, that greedy, smouldering, burning look… and still he had been faster. Still he had reached her before she had been able to escape. And those eyes had bored into hers, those strange turquoise eyes…

Turquoise? Could anyone have turquoise eyes?

And this was all she had truly consciously seen of him before he had kissed her. Without asking her permission first, of course. And together they had stumbled backwards through her dressing room door, though she had not quite realized where she was going, never breaking contact, until she had felt the wall at her back, but still the world around her had been spinning, and she had clutched his upper arms for support, not even wondering who he was, her mind wiped blank of every conscious thought…

Why had she not reacted in a more appropriate way? Why had she not shaken him off, or better yet, hit him, as she should have done? She had told herself often enough that if a man behaved to her like that, she would hit him as strongly as she could, for once overcoming her dislike to the use of violence. But no, she had not even thought of that when those eyes had met hers.

Had it been real at all? It had been too vague, too dream-like to be true, somehow.

But why, if she had just imagined it, did her lips feel slightly sore, then?

Heavens protect her, indeed!

After an eternity they had broken apart at last, and she recalled the glimpse of his face she had caught then, a smoky image straining to dissolve the harder she tried to regard it. Only those strange turquoise eyes were clear, dominating her recollection. Apart from that, there were very few details she could remember with certainty. He had been dark-haired; a long strand of chestnut hair had hung over his face as he had looked down at her, that moment after the kiss when they had just faced each other. And he had been light-skinned, she was sure, maybe even pale, and his chin had been lightly clefted, she thought to recall. Apart from that, she only knew that he had worn a dark green waistcoat hanging open over a white shirt, but even this was a dim memory, as if from her early childhood.

And there had been something wrong with his face. She could not quite explain, but somehow… somehow there was… a hole… a _hole_? No, not a hole. But… a patch of white? The eye had been there on the right side, but around it… Somehow she only remembered one eyebrow…

Had she not been embarrassed and scared and angry in one, and still somewhat dizzy at the same time, she might have laughed at that. Only one eyebrow, and some patch of white in his face! Now this was totally crazy. And then, after he had appeared out of nowhere, glided up to her and kissed her passionately, he had regarded her for a moment… and then just disappeared, as if he had dissolved into thin air, and she had found herself alone in her tiny changing room, with the door closed.

Maybe she was ill. One of the dancers working here had once told her that she had had a fever and had spent two days hallucinating. Maybe Valencienne should just go home and have an early night.

She bit her lips to stop that odd tingling sensation. One thing she knew: that she would not mention this to anyone. But she would keep her eyes open for any stranger who came heading in her direction, and the next time she would hit him. Yes, she would! Even if his kisses could steal any woman's breath.

Why, why on earth did she have the strange impression that he had been stunningly handsome?

Oh, nonsense! She pushed herself away from the wall decidedly and picked up her costume for her next appearance on stage, brushing a few specks of dust off harder than it was necessary. No man was so stunningly handsome that a woman keeled over straight as a plank! And no man was so stunningly handsome that he could kiss her just like that!

Well, if he asked, though… if he asked nicely, she might let him. There was nothing wrong with a bit of kissing, as long as it was done discreetly. She had kissed a young man once, a few years ago, though in no way as wildly as that stranger just had done it with her, if he had not been simply a figment of her imagination.

This place is bad for me, she thought while she changed into the new costume, a ridiculously glittering green gown. The woman in charge of the singers and dancers said it showed off her good figure and brought her eyes out nicely. Valencienne thought it made her look like some kind of exotic fish with hair, and her figure was not that exciting anyway. Besides, she was a singer, not something to stare at. Though the men did, of course, which made her inwardly roll her eyes. Men! As if they had never seen a woman before!

But that stranger from just a moment ago topped everything.

"Bastard," she muttered, savouring the sound of the offensive word. It was rude, yes, but it was a good method to vent her anger when she was required to smile once she was back on stage. "Nasty, vile, lousy, disgusting bastard." Here she paused. "Well, maybe not disgusting," she murmured. "But foul, yes. Foul and sneaky. Rude, impertinent, lusty, lecherous." Lecherous, what a good word. She almost laughed at it, because it reminded her of those ridiculous fat old patrons who sometimes sat at the tables at the very front and always were in danger of having their eyeballs rolling out of their heads. Valencienne regularly enjoyed picturing how they would crawl around on all fours trying to retrieve them from under the piano. Go and find those turquoise eyes of yours, bastard! Catching her own eye in the cracked little mirror on the wall, she smiled. If he was handsome enough, she might not hit him, but tell him something along those lines perhaps, like _I don't want to go looking for your eyeballs in my cleavage, so find someone else to stare at_. As she pulled the needles out of her hair to rearrange it, her smile broadened.

But she could hit him all the same. It would serve him right.

Forcing the smile to remain on her lips, she tried to chase away the thought of how those eyes had rendered her defenceless at one look. She could not even have cried for help.

But she would not hide away and tremble now, oh no indeed! She was a little shy, yes, but that did not mean that she would climb into her wardrobe and spend the rest of her life in there! And just because of a probably drunk patron with no manners to speak of.

"Bastard! Bastard, bastard, bastard!" At least insulting him made her feel a little better. "Son of a lunatic billy-goat!" Though she had never been an aggressive person, she had always been good at making up insults.

When she got back on stage, she decided, together with those two colleagues who were due to turn up any moment now and crowd this tiny room even more than it was already with only her in it, then she would discreetly scan the patrons for a man matching that description. If she found him, then she would do her best to stay away from him. If not… well, then it had just been her imagination running wild.

It was high time she found a better place to work at, she decided. High time indeed. Maybe she should really try to audition at one of the opera houses; they might have room for another chorus girl. Too bad the Grande Opéra was not finished yet, and even worse that it was currently used as a storehouse. Well, this was war, and there was nothing she could do about it. The Opéra Comique, then, perhaps? Or the Opéra Populaire? They said it had a ghost or something like that, but who wouldn't if they had somehow managed to have the strangest accidents continually? Better to stick with the Opéra Comique, then… though those ghost stories did make her a little curious, she had to admit. Picturing a bedsheet running amok backstage, she found her merry spirits again, more or less.

Her landlady would be grateful, she thought with a little sigh. That woman was too prudish to be allowed. It had taken Valencienne a full hour to convince her that she was a bar singer, not a prostitute. A prostitute! The nerve of it! But a chorus girl… now that would be something.

But for now, she was here, at the Maxim. And for now she had to make the best of it.

And hopefully there would be no more visitors who ensnared her with the power of their eyes to have her at their disposal…

Oh, the bastard!


	28. BOOK FIVE: Breaking the Waves

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: What did we say about reviewing? Ahem. (lol) Well, anyway, here's Book Five. And does who've had spoilers (including those who've read _The Phantom Holiday Special_) will know what that means…  
Pertie: We'll see about their relationship here, Valencienne might get just a little more… (Erik: Great kisser, am I? Oh, _nice…_)  
Morleigh: I won't forget about Christine and Meg, of course. Oh, and maybe I'll give you guys a virtual ventilator or something like that for the upcoming steaminess. (Erik: You'd react the same, you say? Hmm, care for a little kiss?)  
aragornnme/Arien: Never mind. It says somewhere in the beginning Raoul used to take violin lessons, and Christine's father taught him. Look there, someone who likes Valencienne. I like her too, and not only because she looks a lot like Kate Beckinsale. ;-) You're abusing your Erik? I ought to take a peek once we've upgraded our internet connection… As I said, just poke someone on Panarophiles and tell them you want to be educated about "Sail me away", and you'll be quite amazed, that's al I'm allowed to say in here… (Erik: Of course I don't act like a gentleman. I'm no gentleman. Tsk right back at you.)  
jtbwriter: Wait and see, that's all I'm saying. (Erik: Just wait 'til he tells you patience is a virtue. Even though he's an impatient little flea himself.)  
Bea: Trust me, you don't want to know about my subconscious. (lol) Glad to hear another female POV worked out. (Erik: I won't be sexy for you unless you stop lecturing me about my relationships. They're none of your business, except when… Oh, let's see. Come sit on my lap. Right now. Then we'll discuss when it's your business, shall we?)_

-.-.-

**Book Five: Breaking the Waves**

I. Track down this Murderer  
II. Stranger than you dreamt it  
III. I'm here with you  
IV. Raging Fire  
V. Too long you have wandered in Winter  
VI. An Eternity of this  
VII. All I want is Freedom  
VIII. A Dream and nothing more

_You have brought me to the moment when words run dry  
To that moment when speech disappears into silence, silence  
I have come here, hardly knowing the reason why  
In my mind I've already imagined our bodies entwining, defenceless and silent  
Now I am here with you  
No second thoughts, we've decided, decided  
_–Opera Ghost, Don Juan

_Don't you remember the ramparts above your own home, one afternoon in the sun? Don't you remember the Road of Nerayamat? The balcony above the Gates of Heaven? The place of your duty as well as your treason?_  
–Niobe


	29. I Track down this Murderer

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the delay.  
Beregond's Girl: Wow, that's confusing. Say hello to Arien from me.(lol) (Erik: Hey there, other Erik. I don't know if I should be pleased or irritated.)  
Pertie: Minor again, but there is more to come… (Erik: Shut up, kid, we said no spoilers!)  
Bea: Don't indulge him. (Erik: Do indulge me!)_

-.-.-

**I. Track down this Murderer**

At the long last, Michel Delannay found that he was content. This time, he had what he wanted, and he had everything he could possibly have expected.

Opposite him, Bracy was blowing smoke rings towards the ceiling, patiently at Delannay's disposal. Though grudgingly, Delannay had grown to like the calm, silent officer. Bracy did what was asked of him, and he did it readily. And he was completely emotionless about it. A very useful man, that Bracy.

Across the room, Charles LaCroix lounged in an armchair and still somehow managed to convey utter alertness. His pale features formed a permanent frown, with two sharp lines above the bridge of his nose giving him a grim exterior. His eyes, black in the shadows, rested on the new stack of files on Delannay's desk, never flickering away. Like a bird of prey ready to dive. LaCroix was another useful man, yet he was dangerous. He was… hungry. Hungry for everything. Power, domination, blood, honour, glory, knowledge, victory… he wanted it all, and he drank it up to the last drop and still desired more. LaCroix was not to be sated.

But Delannay would give him something that would keep his ever-greedy mind busy for some time. For now he knew what he wanted to know, this matter could be out of Bracy's hands and come into LaCroix's, if Delannay chose so.

So this was the story of the Opera Ghost, then. A scarred madman who was hiding from the world, a coward but a fiend, destroying and murdering for the love of a woman. The mere idea made Delannay want to laugh out loud. How very operatic! Yet there were some facts that should not be ignored, some facts he did not truly understand, nor did he believe them, to be honest. But still… they were part of the police reports, and a large part, to be exact. Scientists had written and speculated on them, described and analyzed. They could not be true, those ghost stories, but they were practically proven so.

Still, there was the possibility that this was some kind of conspiracy to frighten him… yet so large a conspiracy? And why had Chateaupers kept those things from him if it were so? A man like LaCroix would surely have said that it was part of the plan, but his experience had taught Delannay that things were never as complicated as enemies might want you to assume.

So whom to believe? What to believe?

Once again he drew the pile of papers towards him, picking up the one on top. If he believed just part of what it said here, however unlikely it was, it might just answer a question from earlier on. Studying the description given, he memorized it, then closed his eyes for a moment and conjured up the image he held in his head. Well… a few adjustments, perhaps… and then there was the question of this mask, of course, and, more importantly, what was hidden beneath…

Opening his eyes again, he came to a decision. "Bracy, you're a tall man. Will you do me the favour and stand by the door for a moment?"

If the police officer was surprised, he did not show it. He simply dropped his cigarette butt into the ashtray, got up and did as he had been told.

"No, a little more to the right. Yes, like that. Exactly." Delannay could practically feel LaCroix's scrutinizing gaze on him, but he ignored it. Yes, this might be about right. "What does the floor feel like, beneath your feet?"

Again Bracy did not show the slightest sign of astonishment. "Like any other part of the floor in this office, Councillor, if this is what you are implying."

Ah. Clever man. "Now reach out. Let us see which parts of the wall you could reach from this point. No, with your back to the wall. Any special ornament, any point that catches your attention? Close to you, I should think, but I can't say with certainty."

For some time there was silence, interrupted only by the soft noises Bracy's large, deft hands made as they brushed against the walls. Delannay watched him closely, and he was sure that LaCroix did the same. And so did that white and brown weasel thing, peeking out of Bracy's discarded coat thrown over his chair. Ridiculous animal, but a good sign, a sign that this born marquis was very far from a nobleman as society understood the term. "Nothing as yet, Councillor," Bracy said at last. "But I will order an inquiry, if you wish."

Indeed the man seemed to understand words that were not spoken. Truly a very useful acquaintance. "Do it," he ordered curtly. "Tomorrow afternoon. Until then, I should like to have _current_ plans of the sub-basements."

"I doubt there are," Bracy replied, returning to his seat and scooping up his furry little pet before he sat down again. "I think our suspect in question has made a few changes to the structure. The normal access to the lowest level, via the staircase, is blocked completely. We are certain that there is a way down there, or, to be exact, more than one, which are very easily accessible, but the inquiry of a few months back did not delve into this matter. To be exact, it doesn't comment on the problem at all."

"Chateaupers!" Delannay snarled. "Always Chateaupers!"

"I don't think so, Councillor," Bracy said evenly. "I've rather come to suspect that when our men went down there back then… the structure looked a little different."

For a moment Delannay just fixed him with his gaze, convinced that LaCroix was doing the same. Then he commanded, "Elaborate."

"Councillor, I think they must have entered the lowest cellar the normal way, or otherwise they would have commented on it."

"Yes, very well," Delannay interrupted impatiently, "but surely you don't mean to tell me that this criminal built up a smooth stone wall all by himself in just a matter of a few months?"

Bracy shrugged. "I couldn't say, Councillor, I'm afraid. I'm not sure how it came to be there. The fact is, it _is_ there."

"If you will permit me." LaCroix's voice was deep and gentle, almost silky, yet still there rested a threat in it that could not be ignored, like the shape of a dagger visible through a layer of the finest silk. "I believe the nature of this wall is not, in fact, an ordinary wall's nature."

Delannay turned his head towards him. There he sat, in his common black suit which made his complexion even paler, those black eyes on Delannay, warily and without a blink. LaCroix could make a man uneasy by just turning that unblinking gaze on him. "Explain yourself," Delannay demanded curtly. He tried not to speak to LaCroix in any other way than that, for somehow with LaCroix the urge to keep a distance was stronger even than with those two stuffed morons, André and Firmin.

There was a pause, more for effect than for the need to assemble the words before speaking. "This wall is a door."

Resisting the temptation to try to exchange a glance with Bracy, Delannay forced himself to look LaCroix straight in the eyes. "A door, you say? Do you mean that this wall can be… opened?" It did not sound very plausible, yet somehow… it sounded very much like the thing this man who called himself Phantom would do. The same criminal had designed the trapdoors mentioned in the reports, after all, and it was a miracle Delannay had not lost any men to them yet.

"It can be moved aside." As always, LaCroix did not openly criticize Delannay, but still it was there, like a prick with a needle, very subtle, but still clear enough. Yes, moved aside, not opened. Not that it made a difference, but still… the needle had found its target once again, and Delannay's hands clenched into fists beneath his desk. One of these days he would throw that silver inkstand at LaCroix. If he did not restrain himself, he really would.

"Councillor, do you wish me to investigate?" Bracy put in, and Delannay made a mental note of it. So Bracy would not leave this to LaCroix. Yes, of course he would not. Of course he would make sure this stayed in his own hands. Who wouldn't? But playing those two against each other might be of some use later on, perhaps…

"After you're done with the question of the door," he instructed after a moment's consideration. Yes, for now matters should remain in Bracy's hands, he decided. For now. "Say, have you ever met this Opera Ghost face to face?"

Already on his feet again, Bracy stopped in his track. "No, Councillor. Never. But I will make sure I will, trust me to that."

As the door closed behind him, Delannay almost smiled. I'm on you now, my sneaky friend…

And if Bracy fails… there is still a more unpleasant man to come after you…


	30. II Stranger than you dreamt it

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Though you haven't reviewed too diligently once again (hem hem), here's your new chapter. Yet if you don't feed me enough reviews… you know, my friend Dern and I are working on this new project currently. You don't want me to abandon this, or do you? (Erik: At last, the boy has learned to threaten people. Rejoice…)  
Pertie: I won't say too much now to your comment, but I think you'll like what's going to happen to Delannay later on. (Erik: I like it, at least… I might just start cackling like my namesake, the one known as Chaney Erik…)  
Beregond's Girl: General population and intelligence? Right you are, forget it. Say hi to Arien, and she can eat me for that table of contents if she likes, though there will be no more updates then. (Erik: Hey there, fellow Erik. A bit on the skinny and corpsey side, are you? Cheer up, there are enough girls who find that hot and who think noses are merely optional.) You see, yours isn't the only Erik who can sound like that at times, maybe he ought to go to the basement too…  
jtbwriter: Well, Maurice does have some function, doesn't he? ;) So, on we go. (Erik: If you were going to spout spoilers, kid, then shut up.)  
Dern: It's mah boy:D You certainly have a thing for coppers, eh? And you actually appreciate unpleasantness in larger quantities… (Erik: Want me to be unpleasant for a bit? I'm good at it…)_

-.-.-

**II. Stranger than you dreamt it**

"It's you again." It was no question; she was stating a fact, a fact she saw before her eyes and recognized as reality. No, not a dream, then, despite what she had come to believe over those past five days. From her little window up on the third floor, just a couple of alleys away from here, she had watched the autumn rain wetting the pavement in the yellow glow of the streetlight before the house where she lived, had watched it darken and begin to gleam, to gleam like his eyes had gleamed, and she had felt it had been a dream, born of boredom and loneliness. A dream never to be real.

But it was. He was. There he stood before her, and she wondered how she could ever have doubted his existence.

Was she glad to see him? She could not say. When she had met him first, he had frightened her, but now there was nothing about him left that scared her. The rain had washed it away, together with her illusions. The rain had taken the threat away and left a mere man, his dark hair wet and dripping, and droplets glittered upon his black cloak like tiny pearls. A long strand had slipped out of the soggy ribbon that held his hair together at the back of his neck and now clung to his right cheek – except that this could not quite be called his cheek, since the right side of his face between forehead and upper lip was covered by a white mask that left only the eye exposed, an eye that seemed dark in the shadow of the corridor.

How odd. Why would anyone wear such a thing? Especially a good-looking man like this one… Though it strangely suited him, in a way, it gave him an air of mystery.

"I'm afraid I'm a persistent one, mademoiselle." His lips formed a little smile that did not go away anymore. "Your name is Valencienne, isn't it?"

She nodded, uncertain what to do. He must have asked her colleagues about her; how else could he know her name? This meant he pursued her, and she did not appreciate the idea very much. But then again… maybe she did. The fascination, the thrill of knowing that a tall, handsome man had inquired about her, and the knowledge that he was strong and impetuous…

Impetuous. Impetuous indeed! Actually she should be angry with him.

"That's not a very common name." He came sauntering towards her, still wearing this captivating smile from which she could not tear her eyes away. "Especially for a country girl, I think. But you secretly hope it will help you a little, don't you? That people will remember your name at least?"

He was close enough to touch her easily, but she hardly heeded that fact. "How do you know?" she demanded, vainly trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. Heavens, how could he? She had never spoken of this to anyone!

"Let's say I remember what I learned from you the last time we met."

Suddenly she realized that his hands were on her shoulders, that he was far closer to her than she would normally have let him come, but she could not back away anymore now; his grip was too firm, gentle but unyielding. Briefly the thought flashed through her head what would happen if anyone saw them now, what her colleagues would think, but then the dread pushed it back again, the dread of not knowing what had truly happened between them that last time. Had she truly told him of her inmost thoughts and hopes?

"Don't be afraid." His voice was very soft, very soothing, and she felt warmth spreading inside her, though she could not tell whence it came. "I can keep you safe from the world outside. No harm will befall you as long as I'm with you."

For a moment she was tempted to rest her head against him, but her pride kept her from it. She could not just swoon into a stranger's arms only because he was handsome and had a soothing voice! Especially when it was the danger he represented himself that made her need soothing. "How do I know it is not you who may harm me?"

His smile never faltered as he quirked an eyebrow, the one that was not hidden by his strange mask. "Do I look like a dangerous man to you?"

"Yes." It sounded forced and feeble to her own ears.

"Oh, really." His voice was tinged with amusement as he pulled her closer. "Then you'll soon find that I'm nothing but a tame predator who likes to play."

Lord, how tempting it seemed to simply huddle against him! "But a predator all the same." No, she would not give in to him. "I'm no courtesan. Go find yourself someone else to play your little games with."

As she said this, she raised her head to look him squarely in the eyes – and suddenly she felt how the world dimmed around her. His eyes were gleaming, fires of blue in the shadows, and their heat consumed her gently, devoured her in a caress. "But there is no one else I want," she could hear his voice from far away, like a thin, silky veil lightly stroking her cheek. "What do I gain from a courtesan's love? It is brief and as false as a hyena's. Your lips have stoked a fire inside me. Will you let me burn without granting me what you silently promised back then?"

"There is nothing I promised you," she protested weakly, unable to avert her gaze.

"I read it in your eyes." One of his hands was wandering up the side of her neck. "They leave your sweet little mind so unprotected…" His fingers stroked her cheek, then settled in her hair, at her temple. "They are gateways to your soul, my dove. And what a pretty soul you have, I might add." He chuckled gently. "Won't you kiss me again?"

"No." But already she felt her resistance melting away with the heat his eyes had kindled in her. Heavens, she would not give in! She could not!

"No? And yet you want to. I know you do." While still toying with her locks, he gently rested his forehead down against her head. "It's your choice, of course. I only hope you won't regret it later on."

"No," she repeated, as firmly as she managed to. She should pull away now, she knew, or at least try to, but she stood transfixed where she was, close to him, and even though their gazes did not meet any longer, she thought she could still feel his burning eyes on her.

"Then I hope you will never deem this moment wasted, this day, the past days, the times of your youth. Maybe the time will come when you look out of your lonely window with regret, wishing to see the stars glinting in the sky, and all you see is the dull gleam of the cobblestones in the rain, and then you remember… All those years the rain washed away, those long, dark, empty years you've spent alone in the shadows, dead to the world… The world does not care, and neither does the rain, because it will still wash the cobblestones when you're gone, and the stars care least of all. What does it matter to them what sorry excuse for a life you've led? What do they care when you look back on the ruins of a lifetime? For you're just a tiny dot in a larger pattern, a pattern you can't see and wouldn't understand even if you could, and there's no purpose in your existence save damnation, and no redemption to be found, and the dream of love you once harboured is long torn to shreds, broken to shards that cut you with their sharp edges… and finally the point comes where you hardly feel the pain anymore because you're bled dry, but still you go on, empty inside, heading nowhere, and when you watch the rain beating the street, when you watch those cobblestones gleam… then you sometimes wonder if it could have been the starlight instead, if you had just chosen differently, because you did have a choice back then, you only did not see it…" Suddenly his hands dropped away from her and he stood back, his head lowered, his features ghostly pale against the black of his cloak and his dark hair wet from the rain. For a moment he was silent, then he whispered, "Forgive me." And with a twirl of his cloak that conveyed an air of elegance yet somehow seemed very mechanical, he turned and walked away from her without looking back.

"Wait." Valencienne did not quite know why she said it. She had gladly felt that dazzling heat fading, and she was glad to see the stranger go, yet at the same time… he fascinated, positively enchanted her. How she wished for these eyes to be gone and stare through her no more, and how she wanted them to bore into hers again at the same time! Now he had turned away, the heat had gone completely as well, and all that was left was the usual chill of the corridor, and she was confused to find that she did not know which one she would prefer. "Who are you?"

He halted, but did not turn back to her. "Someone who has learned his lesson." His voice, so warm and melodious before, was toneless now, except for a clear tinge of bitterness.

She spoke before she had truly collected her thoughts. "Who was she?" Because she understood now whom he had truly meant when he had spoken of all that regret and pain and loss.

But had he truly wanted her to comment on it in any way, she suddenly asked herself. Should she not better have kept silent?

This time he slowly turned around, the floorboards creaking gently under his heavy boots. Never before had she seen anyone wearing boots in combination with an evening dress, but she found that it suited him. "Why would you care?" Abruptly he threw back his head, shaking a few wet strands of hair out of his face, and his bright eyes flashed briefly in the twilight.

God, what a scathing tone suddenly! Like a wounded animal, he lashed out when something touched him. All the same, he had no right to take that tone with her. "You began it, didn't you?" And she had meant to hit him, she remembered. "Why did you come here, in the first place?" She really should do it, just walk up to him and hit him, but now he was there, she could not quite summon up the courage. Besides, she felt there was something else hurting him already. No longer enshrouded by mists and mystery, he was nothing but a man now, nothing but a stranger like all the others who hopefully came to this corridor. He might stand out among them perhaps, but it did not truly make a change, not any longer. "I'm not her, even if I may remind you of her – it's that, isn't it?"

Only a brief tightening of his lips told her that she was right. His features were stone now, as cold and motionless as the mask he wore.

Who was he? Who was he really? Now it suddenly seemed to Valencienne that he was two men at once, one the enchanter, the one who had cast his spell over her and enthralled her with one glance, the other the victim, the broken man, soon too weary to search for a way to ease his pain. "I'm sorry I asked."

"Never mind." He tried to give his voice a light tone, yet he did not quite succeed. "You're not her, no, and you never will. But you please my eyes as you are." Before she could find any retort, he added, "Have you ever tried another place than this? Anything better?"

Confused, she shook her head. Were his eyes lighting up again, with that same fire as before?

"You have a chance. And I could help you there." Still he did not quite meet her gaze, but he smiled again. "You wanted to know who I am, didn't you?" Was it truly amusement she thought to hear in his voice? How could he have caught himself so soon? Was he really sauntering towards her once again? "I am the master over a place you picture in your dreams. I can give you everything your ambition might drive you towards, that and much more. Though I may be at war with the world at the moment", here his smile became a little ironic, "I will not let it detain me. There's always a new beginning, for both of us. Come." And he held out his black-gloved hand for her.

Drawing a deep breath, Valencienne tried to soothe all the questions whirling around in her mind. What did he want? How should he know of her dreams and ambitions? Who was he? Where did he mean to take her? And, unimportant as that was, how had he managed to put on gloves so suddenly? When he had turned to go away, probably, but still… Not, that really was not important. What mattered more was… could he truly read through her eyes what secret dreams she harboured?

And how had he known of the rain on the pavement one lonely night?

"Come with me," he repeated gently, and it seemed to her that the walls were whispering the words along with him. His eyes shone in the half-light, like pale stars in the morning…

Lord, who are you, who are you underneath that mask? Angel or demon, from Heaven or from Hell?

And then he took her hand, and she doubted no more.


	31. III I'm here with you

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you all for reviewing. That's the way I love you! (snicker, snuicker)  
Beregond's Girl: Yes, it's making me write both fluff and angst too. I never did that before. Yes, it would be odd if the Phantom would be interested in me. I tend top believe he's absolutely straight. No, don't force me to listen to rap music, I'm continuing! Have mercy! (Erik: Yes, I'm straight. Duh. And modern technology is fun. For example, I play Ron in the HP4 video game, and I've got a curse-enforcer with which I can even blast a blast-ended skrewt to pieces. Go me!)  
PhantomKiss: I'm glad I got a review then. (Erik: Why, come and pat my chest, and we'll discuss propositions…)  
Bea: Those OCs just keep turning up, I can't keep myself from doing it. Yes, there are certain patterns in Erik's behaviour easily recognizable… (Erik: Don't call me predictable, kid.)  
Pertie: You're going to get all your answers, though not just now. But in the two chapters after this, mainly, wait and see… (Erik: Hmm, physical attraction…)  
ChristinelovesPhantom: Rabid E/C shipper, eh? (Erik: Sure I need Christine. Want! Now!)  
jtbwriter: Funny, originally Valencienne was not meant to have much of a backbone, but since I like women to possess some defiance… (Erik: Me too, thank you very much.)  
Busanda: Gosh, this is going to be one long reply. Yes, I'm certainly under his influence. (Erik: Though I wouldn't call him reincarnation. He's small and skinny, for Hell's sake!) Thanks a lot for your compliments. As for male pulchritude… some I picked for my sister's sake, some just because they fitted the image in my head. The reason to put Rufus Sewell on the list was his unusual eye colour – at first I had him down for Adhemar, who had no name until then, but then I shifted hi to Serge and Adhemar got his name… I do love my little jokes… Yes, I've seen Attila (Erik: Me too, he made me watch it. No idea what's so funny about that guy. Apart from the fact that he doesn't look like a Hun and has a funny accent.), but those are not influences I got there. The bit about the turquoise eyes is from there, though – my best mate and I were looking at my screen shots, and he suddenly said, "Hey, he's got turquoise eyes!" Loincloth? We shall see… (Erik: Snuggle? Give me your address.)  
Arien: Well, he does tend to change his mood very suddenly, or at least my Erik here does. And especially when he's nervous, slips might happen. (Erik: Nervous? Who are you calling nervous, milksop?)  
The Musician of the Night: Good to see you back. The name you're looking for is Aminta. (Erik: Nicknames are nice, aren't they?)  
Faye: Catching up fast… (Erik: Should I be afraid?)  
MlleOG: You'll have to wait for two more chapters, I already wrote the passage in question. (Erik: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…)_

-.-.-

**III. I'm here with you**

Madame Giry had never trusted Aeternus. There was something about him that just did not make him trustworthy. And it was not only because the first time they had met had been far from pleasant. That man had something about him that made one's gaze want to pass over him without comment, without noticing him, even when one was concentrating on him. That man was so absolutely _sneaky_.

And Erik did not like him. Of course it would not be a very intelligent thing to simply share Erik's opinion, since he could be pretty far from a reasonable man at times, but this time she found he had a point. After all, Aeternus was a Lost One.

To be exact, so was Erik – or so it would seem, but Madame Giry was considerate enough to avoid discussions of this topic in his presence. But Erik also was the little boy she had watched grow up, her old friend and playmate. And that made a vast difference. Even though little Erik was a grown man now, and a cruel and vicious one, to be honest – despite his habit of occasionally slipping in for a cuddle –, even though this little Erik was dominant, moody and foul-tempered often enough, Madame Giry admitted to herself that she still harboured a soft spot for him.

Whereas Aeternus… When she had first made his acquaintance several months ago, he had not exactly behaved to incur her favour, and he had done nothing at all to remedy this. On the contrary, he was currently making it worse by inviting himself for tea into the small flat she had at the Opera House, and that rather late in the evening. At least he had sent those two servants of his, Lászlo and Sándor, away, or else there would not be much left of the teacake by now. The pair of them were pretending to be stagehands at the moment, so they appeared at the cantina often enough, and especially young Sándor seemed to possess a healthy appetite.

And he tended to grin and wink at her daughter in a way she entirely did not approve of. One of these days, that lad might get his ears seriously boxed if he did not take care.

"So," she said, using not precisely a stern tone as she sat down opposite him, but one that showed that she had little patience at the moment. "What can I do for you, Monsieur Aeternus?" Of course this was not his real name; nobody in his right mind was called Aeternus, not even in Prussia.

Not that Aeternus necessarily was in his right mind, but all the same.

Leaning back in the armchair he was occupying, Aeternus managed to convey the impression that he felt perfectly at home. "Let's be plain and simple, just as you want it. Once again, I've come for your friend Erik."

Madame Giry considered the second half of his first sentence for a moment, then said, "In case you're reading my mind, stop it right now. It's rude."

"It's more subtle than smalltalk, though," Aeternus replied lightly, tugging at his left cuff and seeming very busy with it, but Madame Giry did not doubt that his full attention did not waver from her for one second.

"Not that you've ever bothered with etiquette," she stated tartly. "I only thought you ought to know that it's incredibly rude. You see, there's a word for people who do such things."

"There's more than one, to be precise." Oh, for Heaven's sake, how could one be bothered with a silly cuff for so long, especially if the cuff in question was on a plain grey jacket that had seen better days? It was absolutely ridiculous! "The one you'd probably use is _Lost One_, though as the Phantom's friend you'll also know _Fateless_, I assume. Myself, I would prefer _Guardian_ or _Fireborn_, or _Elder_ if you like, yet to ask you to consider me a _Blessed One_ would probably be pure arrogance in my current situation. You know, we do have our pride."

At first the ballet instructor was totally lost for words – the man was too mad to be real! – but then she found them again rather quickly. "_You_ have your pride, certainly. And your friend Créon did, no doubt of it, and that one companion of yours I was unlucky enough to meet, that one who was even ruder than you, Abdallah or whatever his name was, some ridiculous made-up thing –"

"Adhemar," Aeternus supplied, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement. "Yes, Adhemar certainly did not possess any manners to speak of. But to call Créon my friend is a bit too much, perhaps. He was a temporary ally; yes, consider him that."

"Whatever you call him now." To Madame Giry, it did not matter in the slightest. "Whenever you turn up, you're here to bother Erik in some way, to put it nicely."

"Ah, Claire, I don't think you really understand."

"That's still Madame Giry to you, thank you."

He shrugged. "As you wish. And no, I'm not here to bother your Erik. I'm here because he needs me."

Madame Giry eyed her visitor doubtfully. Very probably Aeternus knew something about those recurring nightmares, but could he really help? And would Erik want his help at all? He would certainly refuse to render himself vulnerable to Aeternus, obsessed with showing strength as he was, and this time Madame Giry found herself whole-heartedly agreeing.

"Actually," Aeternus continued, "I brought him something that might keep him occupied for a while, and not only that, but also rather happy." Bending down, he rummaged for a moment in the rough leather bag he had thrown seemingly carelessly at his feet. "Here. He's bound to like it."

Suspiciously, Madame Giry eyed what Aeternus had placed on the table between them, amid teacups and plates. It looked like a very large bundle of notes…

"It's Richard Wagner's newest works," Aeternus supplied. "The first two parts of a tetralogy not yet completed. We saw both of them in Bavaria – I admitted my companions and me to the king's box – and were rather impressed. Of course, Wagner himself was not too pleased with such an early presentation, but King Ludwig insisted, and he had to agree, since the king comes up for all his extravagant needs, after all. Well, however. I used a couple of my tricks to have both of the scores copied out completely for our secretive friend's bedtime reading."

Oh. Now this was something Erik would enjoy. He could read a score like he could read a book, after all, and Madame Giry knew that he did so regularly and had several well memorized. But a new Wagner, or even two… Only too well she recalled how much he had liked Wagner's _Flying Dutchman_ many years ago when they had staged it at the Opéra Populaire, and last spring he had made his first official stage appearance in the very same opera, in the role of the hunter Erik. To get his hands on two new Wagner scores would please him immensely. "What are they about?" she inquired, curious herself. "And do they contain any major tenor parts?"

"Let's say he butchered up some of the old German tales of gods and heroes." Aeternus smiled. "It's not very logical, at times overly melodramatic and even defies the rules of grammar in some places, but it has the most marvellous music. And yes, there are some tenor parts. Not that many in _The Rhinegold_, actually, but Siegmund in _The Valkyrie_ may just suit our masked friend fine. Unless he'll go for Wotan. A baritone part, but the main part in both operas really. I'm not sure if he can sing baritone, though."

"You'll have to ask him after he's seen the parts." Madame Giry shrugged. "He knows his own range best." She knew that the Phantom could master higher baritone parts without problems, yet she did not quite know where the limit to his vocal range lay. The Dutchman, for example, had been too low for him, or so he had said. Well, that one was a part specifically written for low baritone, so it was not very surprising. He certainly had a wide range, but there was a limit to every singer's voice, and if he pushed himself too hard, he would only ruin it. "Say, why haven't you given him those scores earlier?"

"I haven't really had a chance of getting him on his own," Aeternus replied simply.

What an unlikely answer. He must have had another reason to withhold his little present until now. In this past fortnight, there must have been opportunities enough to get the Phantom on his own, especially since her daughter, Christine and Raoul now lived upstairs once more. No, Aeternus was planning something. He was plotting once more. And he was trying to play to his advantage once again, in some game none but he knew the rules for.

"I don't need to read your mind to know what you're thinking." Again he wore that mysterious smile, and Madame Giry could not tell if it reached his eyes or not. "But he needs me, if he wants it or not, and now more than ever. The outbreak of war has stirred in him what would not yet have woken. It's coming back to him, worse than it would have been otherwise. Some part of his spirit has always remembered, and that one part is dragging all that was forgotten back into the light because he can feel the war calling him. He may hide still, and he may refuse to take part, but not for long. The time will come when he will put down the bow and lasso and step out into the sun to take up the sword."

Unbelieving, Madame Giry shook her head. No, this was not her Erik as she knew him. This could never be him. "He will always shy away from the light. And he doesn't care about politics."

"He was born a warrior, millennia ago. He was created for war."

"And he won't like that talk," Madame Giry retorted sharply. "Knowing him as I do, he might keep himself in the darkest corner of the cellars now just to spite you."

Laughing dismissively, Aeternus waved it away. "It would be against his nature."

Why such confidence? Suddenly Madame Giry felt a strong urge to pick up her slender cane and poke the man with it. Sharply. As far as far-fetched fairytales were concerned, Aeternus was no better than Créon. This was the very last thing her Erik needed now, stories about some crazy mythology when nightmares about such things were already haunting him!

Leaning back, Aeternus sipped his tea quietly, like any ordinary visitor in any ordinary living room, looking no different than others, except for the dagger he wore at his belt perhaps. He had worn it when they had met the first time already, Madame Giry recalled, only that he had been swathed in a black cloak back then. Now he was dressed in a plain grey suit, with even a grey cravat; only the collar of his shirt, visible above it, was white. In this attire, he would not stand out in a crowd – which was what he wanted, probably.

Couldn't he simply use one of his mind tricks, the one Erik used as well from time to time? Couldn't he simply make himself invisible?

An odd man, that Aeternus. A very odd man indeed.

"This is the reason I'm here." Madame Giry almost gave a start as he suddenly spoke again. "He needs one who has gone through this same trial too once, one like me, to guide him. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him, and he's in good hands with me. You all are, to be precise." Once again he smiled as he put the cup back down in its saucer, and once again his eyes appeared strangely blank, though his expression seemed warm. "I'm here with you to have an eye on you all."

"Your intentions did not seem so noble when you came here the last time," Madame Giry remarked coolly.

Aeternus shrugged, and his features did not shift at the slightest. "Times change, and so do the purposes. We're all pawns in the great game Fate plays with us, as it's said, since the truth is long forgotten now. Wind and waves carry us wherever they want, and we don't know our destination until we're swept ashore."

It was hard for Madame Giry not to roll her eyes at such a reply. "You do realize that this does not answer my question, don't you?"

"What are questions? What are answers?" Aeternus laughed to himself softly. "You did not truly ask, and I did not truly reply. If you knew, would that change anything? For you, or for me? What do we really gain from knowledge? What do we really learn from pain?" There was a gentle hiss of metal sliding over metal, and Madame Giry winced slightly as he drew his dagger and held it up to the light. Lord, what did he intend to do with it? Should she go for her cane, just a few steps out of reach? Her palms moistened with tiny pearls of sweat, and something contracted painfully inside her.

"Why does steel frighten us once put into shape?" Was there irony in his voice? Oh, she wanted to snatch him by the cravat and box his ears until he could see little bright dots dancing around his head! "Is it not the man who strikes the wound in the end, not the weapon itself? But what's the use of wondering, for wounded you are in the end. To you, it makes no difference." Very tenderly, he brushed his thumb along the blade, then held up his finger to the light, watching one single drop of scarlet forming. "No difference at all."

Odd did not even come close! "And what is your point, precisely?"

Regarding her sideways as he dropped the dagger onto the table, right beside his plate, he lightly cocked one of his thin eyebrows. Well, maybe thin was not the right word, it suddenly occurred to her, as they were not thin in shape, but rather… thinly grown, in a way. Funny, she had not noticed it before. "Why, the relativity of everything," he said lightly, for once answering a question directly. "And at the same time, the purpose concealed in everything. Waking and dreaming, life and death, light and shadow… They form a pattern, even though we cannot see it. It is only visible from… beyond." And then suddenly his blank features grew weary. "But I cannot see them any longer, however hard I try. I'm a long way away from home."

Madame Giry sighed. Another world-weary Lost One, just like her own Erik. Getting up, she fetched a bit of gauze from a drawer. "Hold out your hand," she told him, picking up her little scissors from the top of the box of drawers where she had left it when she had abandoned her needlework to let Aeternus in.

"What for?" At least he was not reading her mind now, or else he would not look so confused. Aeternus confused, now that was a sight to remember!

"Now look here," she said, snatching up his left hand herself – she almost expected him to resist, but he didn't –, and carefully wrapped a strip of gauze around his bleeding thumb, then cut off what remained of the fabric and secured her little bandage with another strip. "I don't hold with self-mutilation of any kind, and that includes your harmless version here. Melodrama is no excuse. I mean, you're four hundred years old, or at least you claim you are, and that's a few hundred years too many to still wave a big knife to impress people, you silly man! So. And now you let it heal and don't mess around with it."

Only when Aeternus laughed softly she realized that she had just scolded him like a child, but she did not truly regret it; a man like him could do with some scolding, too. Her Erik needed a little scolding at times, so why not Aeternus? It served him right for his annoying smugness! Holding her head high, she threw him a cool look that conveyed that who laughed at this was very infantile indeed. She was good at those looks; after all, she had all of the ballet to practise on.

"Oh, Claire… you're very caring…"

"What did I just tell you about what you are supposed to call me?" she snapped, annoyed at being unable to detect any sarcasm in his comment. "Say… what do you know about opera, anyway?"

"So we'll have a little chat, shall we?" Aeternus smiled once again. "Maybe I know more than you expect me to…"


	32. IV Raging Fire

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: At last… IT is there…  
PhantomKiss: The Lost Ones are all made up. For example, I came up with Créon in the summer of 2004 on a passenger ship at Venice. The world is of my own devising, too, though I won't deny it is Tolkien-influenced in style. (Erik: Hmmm… you want to be patted? Why not? Come here, sit on my lap. I'm afraid I can't go to Spain since I'm already mumblemumblehavinganaffairwithanicegirlcalledmithrilmumblemumble (cough, cough)… but that's the spirit, sweetheart. I'm open to any suggestions that can take place here…)  
Pertie: Nicely analyzed. But no, Aeternus is not after Meg, that's Sándor. Apparently he wouldn't say no to her mother, though… (Erik: Tsk, tsk…)  
Beregond'S Girl: Yay, Wagner hardcore! I'm afraid there won't be any Siegfried until later on because that was not written at that point (pity, it's my favourite of the tetralogy, and Erik would make a good Siegfried). (Erik: Definitely! Oh, and don't get me started on slash… Loathe, loathe, LOATHE!)  
jtbwriter: There may be some ear-boxing still, who knows? (Erik: Beware…)  
The Hair: Hello new reviewer! Never mind about being overly constructive, that was certainly good enough for me! As I said above, yes, I made it up myself. Things just keep popping into my head. Yes, I actually had the Erik/Lara thing once, it's a "deleted scene" from The Phantom Holiday Special. Funny you should mention it. And yes, I like Terry; I already liked the guy who played his role in the comic version that was a few years before the movie. They adapted the role a bit, but what the Hell. (Erik: It's a yes, definitely. Hot shower, then chocolate? Dark chocolate, yum… though I'll readily nibble some marzipan, too. I'm not choosy. I can even be found lazing around stuffing myself with jelly beans. Care to feed me?)  
Faye: Thanks for a lot of reviews. You'll soon catch up, I suppose. (Erik: I think a bet would be in place… but then again, I'd rather tackle your MP3 player now since you're not using it, kid. Ask me some other time.)  
Bea: Yes, this began as a joke between us, remember? It's the reason why I included it. (Erik: There were some rather horrible pairings, I remember it only to well…)  
The Musician of the Night: Not very many character, actually, and rather easy for my taste, but then again, I was raised on it, so my opinion probably doesn't count. (Erik: No, not Hugh Jackman. It's bloody Hugh Panaro all over again. The kid's sister fancies him, it's quite pathetic. And the show you're talking about might just be Lestat, where Hugh looks like an oddly dressed version of Legolas.)  
Busanda: Quite right, you never know about Aeternus. (Erik: I'd like to takea peek at your eyes, then…)  
Morleigh: Hmm, I seem to have disturbed your inner calm slightly… (Erik: Don't mind the bugger.)_

-.-.-

**IV. Raging Fire**

It was as if time had stopped and turned back to happier days. It was as if Fate had at last had mercy on him and had given him another chance with Christine.

Only that this was not Christine. He was well aware of it, but he tried to push it away for now as he poled his boat through the flooded corridor, towards the closed portcullis ahead. He always kept it lowered now; caution made him do it. Delannay's men had not come as far as this yet, but they would, undoubtedly they would, however hard Maurice tried to keep them from it. But they had come to an agreement, Maurice and him: before Maurice endangered himself, he would tell what he had to of the Phantom's secrets. To keep Maurice in a place close to Delannay was more important than the Phantom's hideout.

Times had changed very much since back then.

Valencienne turned to look at him, her eyes wide with wonder, his enchantment claiming her thoughts and feelings completely. No, not completely, there was the tiniest flicker of doubt, of suspicion, but he did not smother it, though it would have been easy. He wanted a woman tonight, not a puppet. Smiling down at her, which caused her to smile in return, he found the hidden mechanism under the water with the pole and shifted the lever with just a little flick, and the portcullis rose from the dark water, the drops falling from it like small pearls glittering briefly in the light of the little lanterns at the boat's bow. Then they passed below it already, into his home.

He steered his sleek little gondola towards the shore safely, then, as it met the rock below with a soft, grinding sound, leapt out lightly and leaned the pole against the wall, in its usual place. Then he threw his cloak to the ground carelessly, with just the slightest touch of a bad conscience – that was what came from living with a pair of women for so long! –, but he did not forget to shift the main lever to lower the portcullis again before he returned to his pretty guest.

Yes, she was pretty indeed. She was truly lovely. In the candlelight her face was pale, and her dark hair, somewhat mussed after this journey, seemed almost black. Those eyes, those gentle eyes, were following his every movement, filled with awe and wonder, and she was smiling to herself, just the tiniest of smiles, a smile that filled him with warmth when he looked at her. Himself, he was filled with heat, with wild, burning heat, half excitement, half insatiable hunger that coursed through his veins. But the way she looked at him calmed him, tamed him for a moment, so that he wanted to become a purring kitten in her lap. And then again, he wanted to be a tiger, and he wanted to carry her away as his prey, away to his lair…

And now he had brought her there. Now he had her where he wanted her.

As he came towards her, she slowly rose to her feet, and as he held out his hand for her with a little mock bow, she took it immediately and allowed him to help her out of the boat. All she saw was him; he was the centre of her world.

The thought made his spirits soar, yet at the same time there was a taste of bitterness on his tongue: It was only because he held her in his spell. Otherwise she would reject him, just like every other woman.

No. Not exactly. Not every woman simply rejected him. There were Geneviève and Victorine Poussepain, sweet little things, who never said no to a little cuddle and a few kisses. Marie had hung at his arm for some time, after she had broken up with Xavier, though that had been due to her intention to make the silly ballet boy jealous – soon enough she had been dating the lad again, anyway. Little Meg Giry was a rather cuddly thing, too, as was Claire when she was in the mood – though she had claws when she wasn't, that wildcat of a woman. And that colleague of Meg's, little Cécile Jammes, showed interest, too; the way she always blushed and giggled in his presence and eyed him sideways told him all he needed to know, mind-reading wasn't even necessary. Oh, and Lucie, his little Lucie. He inwardly grinned at the thought. His very own Lucie, indeed. His very useful little secret. He had not even mentioned it to the Girys yet. Yes, Lucie appreciated the sight of him as well, as it seemed, especially in black, but in combination with some touch of colour preferably. During those two years she had known him, he had come to know her just as well, though he had not gone to see her that frequently. It had been a necessary relationship, a business partnership he might call it, but still, knowing something about her had been essential in his position.

Just as he meant to find out more about his Valencienne now, but out of pure curiosity this time. As he wrapped his right arm around her slender shoulders, taking her hand in his left, he called back to mind what he knew already, apart from her name. She had been born in some village near Arras and had come to the city three years ago to find her luck there, and now she lived all on her own in a tiny room some ten minutes' walk from the Maxim, with a stern landlady who usually looked upon her with suspicion. She dreamed of a career as a chorus girl – a modest wish, and easily enough granted – and maybe of a nice young man in the same chorus she would marry, or a musician or dancer, or maybe just a young gentleman, she had not quite decided on that. But she was convinced that until then she would manage to stand on her own, even if it meant the Maxim, which she did not like.

Maybe she could leave that nightclub sooner than she expected… He might keep her with him, he really might. He liked the way she leaned against his shoulder. Tenderly brushing a mental finger over her awareness – the kind of caress he and Christine exchanged most frequently, if they exchanged any at all –, he carefully, very carefully began to withdraw his control, bit by bit…

Slowly Valencienne raised her head, blinking as if waking from a dream. Still she was under his seductive spell, but a new emotion had bloomed up in her mind: curiosity. Turning her head this way and that, she took in her surroundings with a sense of wonder, always returning to the organ before her, its pipes gleaming silvery in the light of all the candles, the pair of braziers at each side adding a reddish flicker of fire. The flames were burning low now, but still their warmth filled the cavern. A spoil he had taken from Créon and his men after his victory.

Yet his past triumph did not interest him right now. His sole focus of attention was this young woman he had brought with him.

At last her gaze returned to him, and she looked up at him, regarding his mask, then, before he could interfere, reached up and stroked it with a finger curiously. "You live in the cellars of an opera house?"

Caught by surprise that she would speak, he merely shrugged. He had not expected her to. He had assumed that she wouldn't, entranced as she was. Christine had not spoken back then.

"Why?"

"Why not?" he managed, at once feeling foolish. Should he subdue her a bit more, so she would not speak? It would be easier without discussing everything. Hell swallow him up whole, else he might end up asking for permission before he kissed her!

"It's romantic, in a way." How she innocently smiled up at him made him want to tangle his fingers in her hair and place a kiss on the tip of her sweet little nose. "I think I know who you are."

Biting his lips, he merely pulled her closer, and obediently she cuddled into his embrace, without the necessity of another increase of manipulation. This would work out the way he wanted it, even if she asked questions at times.

"Are you?" she murmured against his shoulder.

"Am I what?" What did it matter if she really knew who he was? It would not change anything. His fingers wandered up along her spine, caressing the back of her neck. Next he would pull those stupid needles out of her hair, he decided; he preferred a woman with her hair down. Picturing what she would look like, his fingers began to almost physically itch to do it. Hell, she would be so gorgeous!

"The Opera Ghost." Her arm shyly sneaked around his waist, which made him pull her as close as he could in turn. "Suzette – one of the other girls – told me about you. Before that, I used to believe you were some kind of flying bedsheet." Giggling softly, she huddled against him.

"Flying bedsheet?" He grinned. What an amusing girl. That he knew Suzette he rather did not tell her. Even though that one was Maurice's chief agent at the Maxim, she still was a courtesan, and girls did not take too well to finding out the man they fancied was acquainted with a courtesan, no matter how vaguely.

"Don't worry, you feel pretty solid." Her eyes gleamed in the candlelight as she smiled up at him. With delight, he thought to detect a tiny spark of mischief. This girl would be entertaining company, certainly.

"For you, I'll rather be solid." Yes indeed, pretty little thing. "Or would you prefer me to turn into a sheet to keep you warm? Or better a woolly blanket?"

"A woolly blanket would be a pleasant thing," she said brightly, still leaning against him and seemingly quite comfortable. He felt that his joke had reduced her doubts, an effect he had not expected. If he kept talking to her in a light manner, could he maybe withdraw his influence further?

But, curse it, he did not want to talk! There was something else he wanted, a deeper, more primal desire…

No. No, he could not do it. He could not simply use this pretty, innocent thing to quench his wild thirst for a woman's touch.

_Why not?_, a rough, feral voice demanded inside him. _Why not?_

No. Ye gods, no.

But the beast inside him was screaming for it, roaring with a dire lust that almost scared his conscious self. He felt heat surging through him, like a fever, a haze of flames enshrouding him. His shirt was moist with sweat, he felt it – oh, curse it, curse this fire inside him! –, it already stuck to his back. Hell, it was driving him mad!

"Just a moment," he told the girl, struggling out of his jacket and throwing it to the floor carelessly, then fumbling with the knot of his cravat. Hell consume him, he was making a fool of himself! But he had to get this stuff off, or else he would surely suffocate.

Valencienne was watching him, still in a haze, but with an expression of mild amusement as well. "I'd rather call it chilly in here," she stated.

"I find it hot," he said sheepishly, then could have banged his head against a wall for saying something so idiotic. "You see, I'm used to it."

Maybe no talking really was a better idea…

She smiled and shook her head. "I don't quite get it. It's really chilly."

"So let's move to the bedroom, it's usually warmer in there." Wasn't that a bit lame? But he would give it a try. Throwing his cravat in the general direction of the organ bench and missing it just barely, he took her hand and guided her up the steps to his bedchamber, and she followed without the slightest thought of resistance. He had not been lying, it really was warmer there usually, since he had placed another four of Créon's braziers in there, and Valencienne probably already felt their warmth as they entered the chamber crudely hewn from stone. The braziers here were burning low, too, like those outside, but they were still showing effect. And he would yet improve it. Letting go of Valencienne's hand, he fetched a handful of coals from the bucket in a corner and threw it onto the nearest brazier. Immediately flames sprang up merrily. Catching Valencienne's eyes, he gave her a little grin before he did the same with the others. "Happy now? Or do you still want a blanket?"

But she was too busy with taking in all of the room around her to truly hear what he was saying. "It's cosy in here," she decided at last, coming towards him, and he hastily wiped his hands on his trousers so he could hold her again without making her dress dirty. Black fingerprints on green wool wouldn't look too good, and she might not be too pleased with him despite the power he had over her. A little shyly, she nuzzled her head against his shoulder. She was fond of him, he felt, and his presence seemed to fill her with warmth – though this might be the fault of his manipulations, he could not really tell. And she wanted him to hold her, he could distinguish that wish easily from her other hopes and desires. She had had a rough, bad day, and she wanted to be held, just to be held. There was still a bit of suspicion, and a tiny touch of fear, but she was beginning to trust him now.

Determinedly pulling her into his embrace, he felt how her arms snaked around his waist immediately. Hell, how he wanted her! Why did others get their girls, why did Raoul get Christine, and not he? This was his turn at last. Fate would not grant him to lie in his beloved's arms and share with her all he could share, but there still was this one, pretty and with intelligent eyes, and if not with Christine's angelic voice, then at least with a pleasant one still. And Valencienne was a couple of years older than Christine. He would not feel he was taking advantage of a child all the time.

Plucking out the needles he could find and stroking her wavy brown hair that now fell down her back, he carefully lifted his enchantment a little more. It should be her own choice. He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her.

As much as he wanted her… Of course. There was another trick he had not thought of until now, a trick that would help her overcome her shyness. Imagining to link his mind with hers, he poured his own desire into her, filled her with the liquid fire that was burning inside him. She could not answer his mental embrace, of course, she was not Christine, but this was as close as he could get to what he wanted.

And now they both were sharing the same passion… Gently lifting her chin, he leaned down to kiss her once again, and her immediate response stoked the fire even more.

As they at last broke apart, their breathing fast as if they had run over a long distance, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes alight with warmth. "God," she murmured. "I'm really not supposed to do that."

He laughed, using the moment to unbutton his waistcoat. Hell, he was soaring so high, flying on a stormcloud… "God can't see you now. We're too deep underground."

"You silly Ghost." She slapped him on the arm playfully, then they already were kissing again. Oh, such intense pleasure… He broke their contact, but only to place a line of kisses down along the soft skin of her neck, while she tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling out the ribbon that had kept at least part of it still together and tousling it gently, occasionally giving a little sigh of pleasure. At the same time he was struggling out of his waistcoat, dropping it on the floor, and then his fingers already found the small buttons at the back of her dress…

There was no need to increase his influence; she did not resist. He felt the brief flicker of suspicion and very slight annoyance, and for a moment her grip in his hair grew painful, but then she was melting into his embrace again, her mind filled with his presence.

She was his, his alone.

How he wished it could have been Christine.

He briefly nuzzled his cheek against hers, then took her hand and guided it to the collar of his shirt, to the topmost button. Now it was her turn. Come on, you want me, you want me just as much as I want you…

Instead she began toying with his collar absent-mindedly, her other arm around his waist, cuddling closely against him. He felt that she was content, filled with desire but content for now.

Hell, she could not just be so shy! She was on fire as much as he was, he knew it. Would he have to take stronger measures?

Taking hold of her mind, he told her what to do. _Get it open. Or tear it open, whatever you want. Just rip it off me._ At the same time he hated himself for his uncontrolled need, but the sensation was drowned in that great flood of desire that was sweeping him away. _Come on, just do it!_

Her fingers trembled as she began unbuttoning his shirt, down to his upper stomach. Then, very suddenly, she stopped, and at once she wrapped her arms around him convulsively, hiding her face against him shivering. Surprised, he could feel that she was frightened. Immediately he began stroking her back soothingly while caressing her awareness with his mental touch. Had he hurt her? Had she somehow realized that he had just made her do something? Kissing the top of her head repeatedly, he inwardly shivered. Had he become such a blunderer? Why was he unable to completely interpret the stream of feelings inside her head? He could not focus; there was only one purpose on his mind now, while hers was filled with swirling thoughts and feelings, all different, all wanting something else. And suddenly it appeared to him that she tried to take shelter with him from the storm that was raging inside her.

_I'm here with you, little one. Don't be afraid. I won't let you go._

Slowly he felt the storm ease inside her.

Maybe he would understand in the morning. But now, he did not truly care.

She reached up and briefly touched his mask with her forefinger, stroking it as if she were stroking his cheek. "There are many stories about you. But who are you really?"

Yes, who am I? Who the Hell am I?

He raked his fingers through her dark tresses, pulling her head to his shoulder, enjoying the sensation of her breath against his chest, just where his sweat-soaked shirt did not cover it. In his mind, the trumpets sang. "I may be the lowliest creature on Earth," he murmured to her, drawing in the intoxicating fragrance of her hair as he spoke, "the most accursed, the most abhorred… I have no name except those the others gave me. I have no home, no fatherland. I'm nothing like you, nothing but a beast vainly trying to mingle with humanity. I'm a stranger to this world, an outcast for all of eternity." He felt her fingers gently slide under the wet fabric, coming to rest over his heart. Did she feel the passion raging inside him now, the fire? "But in my own world, in my realm of shadows, I'm a god."

She did not speak again, just rested her head against him and played with the silver skull pendant she had found beneath his shirt. But he could read her answer in her mind: _Take me to your world, then._

Wrapping his arms around her tightly, savouring how the waves of desire carried him, he enshrouded her entire awareness with his own. There was one wish, one purpose they now shared. _If you don't love me, then lie to me. For tonight I do not care._

And deep within her consciousness, so deep that conscious thought would never delve there to analyze, she answered, _I love you, stranger._

As he pulled her towards the bed, he felt that he could not restrain himself any longer.


	33. V Too long you have wandered in Winter

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you for all the reviews. As for the problem of Erik controlling Valencienne's mind, an issue which many of you address… I won't comment on that just now. It's of significance, of course (duh…), so the question will be discussed later on, so to say.  
Pertie: Ah, cleverly thought there. But of course I'm not telling you yet. (Erik: He so loves being a tease, it's ridiculous…)  
Beregond's Girl: Not forbidden to read other people's replies, or otherwise I wouldn't put them here. (Erik: Girl, I never had any morals to start with. Oh, and thanks for the cake and ice cream, it was appreciated.)  
Bea: Yes, I knew you were wondering which one was the chapter in question. Maybe receiving spoilers regularly makes it even worse? No, I wasn't thinking of Bon Jovi. To be honest, I don't know a thing by Bon Jovi. (Erik: Hell, you expect me to be some kind of sex machine at my first time? Whew, love, now that's what I call trust in people! Jealous, eh? You can always have the key to my bedroom…)  
jtbwriter: And someone who emphasizes the good sides in Erik's way of, ahem, going about his business, for a change. (lol) (Erik: Well, it's Hollywood basically. You get action, then you get sex, and then some action again. Right, kid? Oh yes, don't deny it. After all, who had problems with fitting al his many many DVDs on a shelf recently?)  
Faye: And you're coming closer and closer… Yes, I'm a morbid little jerk. (snicker, snicker) (Erik: I really should consider that old wager idea…)  
Anya: How well I remember… Thanks a lot for the compliment, it really is reassuring. KotC was very straight, so to say, mainly focusing on the fantasy aspects without an overly complicated plotline, while this one seems to be branching off, so to say, stretching over a longer expanse of time, including a lot more characters and locations, introducing "the world outside" at a rather difficult state, and at the same time focusing on the fantasy aspects even more strongly… Ah, and the first to ask about the title. Yes, it does have a significance, and it can actually be answered by reading KotC very carefully, and doing a bit of thinking, but it's not that obvious. Wait and see, as usual. Yes, and Valencienne has an important part in this (just check the "cast list"). (Erik: Welcome back. Oh, and I hope you won't resent my occasional bouts of desire, now will you? Yes, I know I'm being utterly unromantic… but I can't always lie around in the darkness and angst all over the place, now can I?)  
The Musician of the Night: Feel free to ramble as much as you want, it can actually be quite entertaining. (Erik: Since the boy likes rambling at people himself…)  
ChristinelovesPhantom: Am I being attacked by the Capslock of Doom? (snicker, snicker) (Erik: BEWARE! The boy is so easy to scare…)  
The Hair: Ah, the name issue. I do have something in mind there. No, I don't know the book you mentioned, though I think I've heard of it. The thing about knowing someone's name giving you power over him is a motif I've encountered before, though, it even appears in some fairytales. Yes, I've read Kay's published fanfiction (for there's no other name for it, in my opinion), and I didn't lie it much. Some good ideas, but also some stuff where she should have read her Leroux more carefully, especially the stuff about Raoul and Christine. Ye gods, that annoyed me to no end. (Erik: Jelly beans, movies and mutilating your neighbour's car? It's a definite yes, my dear. Poke me, dare you!)  
Busanda: Oh yes, I love my details, I can't deny it. I always spot such details, and they come to me automatically when I write, often stuff from my own experience. (Erik: Of course I know the computer, whatever the boy says. What are little Darth Gilthoron's powers compared to those of Lord Darth Angelus? … Oh well, perhaps I'm exaggerating a little… love ya, kid) Well, thanks. One has to be grateful for a little display of affection from one's own fanfic creation… (Erik: Sure. Now get your bum off your chair and get me something to eat.)  
PhantomKiss: Of course he's a naughty Erik. (Erik: Yes indeed. Oh, another affair, perhaps? Though Mithril's not the kind of woman to give me trouble, no need to be worried – or hopeful. Still… I'm at your disposal.)_

-.-.-

**V. Too long you have wandered in Winter**

Raoul had slipped into her bedroom once the lights had been turned out in the corridor. It was a risky thing to do, Christine knew, and endangering them both perhaps, if they were caught and some high-ranking Communard chose to investigate the two of them any closer, but she did not want him to go away again. She did not want to be alone right now.

Normally, she never was alone, not as long as she could feel Erik in her head. But at the moment Erik was… busy otherwise.

This was another reason why she was glad to have Raoul with her: Her fiancé would distract her from what sensations were coming to her through the connection she shared with the Phantom. It was easy enough to tell what he was doing, and it made her blush hotly, even though she desperately tried not to think of it. Oh, the images it brought to her mind! The shameful, sinful images!

And the worst about it was, she could not even quite tell if it was Raoul or Erik whom she saw in her mind. Or maybe both of them, only partially clothed and both lazing beside her lasciviously, a dire hunger in their eyes…

Lord above! She really needed to go to Confession one of these days.

But now Raoul was there, and he made it easier for her to ignore what came from the Phantom. He had sat down at the edge of her bed, and she took his hand and squeezed it gently. How sweet he looked, in the white linen shirt and trousers he usually wore in bed and with his sandy-coloured hair tousled! He might need a haircut again soon, it had grown rather long once more. Christine had not quite decided whether she preferred him with long or with short hair. But whichever way, he was her Raoul, once her childhood friend, now the man she loved.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty," Raoul whispered to her, mussing her long curls, and she could hear the suppressed laughter in his voice. "Your prince has arrived."

"Prince?" Christine sat up, her arms around her knees, and gave her fiancé a look of mock indignation. "My dear Monsieur Marin, you're an utterly unimportant violinist."

"Oh, but Mademoiselle Lachatelle, who is nothing but a chorus girl, I might add," Raoul snickered, "I am a _first_ violinist. That does count for something."

"Oh, and very much so," Christine teased him. "Especially since you usually sit at the very hindmost musical stand and beside a certain Jean Leclair, who might be considered, for lack of a better word, _notorious_. I hope we understand each other."

"You know, you almost sound like Erik." Raoul laughed, dropping their pretence. "Only that he would additionally have pointed out that I even sit to Leclair's left, which means I play the lower, that is, easier, notes when it says _divisi_."

"Too right you are," Christine agreed, tickling him under the chin playfully. "And you sound like an experienced orchestra member already. What does _divisi_ mean, exactly?"

"And I thought you knew a bit of Italian." Raoul pinched her nose, and she gently slapped his hand away. "It means _divided_, basically. You know, when there's a passage in the notes where you'd have to play two notes at once if you played it alone, it's tradition in the orchestra that the one on the right plays the higher and the one on the left the lower note. And since Leclair is a better violinist than I am, he's the one on the right."

"So the one on the right is the one with the more difficult part," Christine stated. "I see."

"Yes, but, also by tradition, the one on the left is the one who turns the page. Which is an additional difficulty, you might say."

"I see. That's fair, probably." She interlaced her fingers with his. "But Raoul, you're a good violinist."

Leaning over to her, he tenderly placed a kiss on her forehead. "That's sweet of you, little lamb. Your father was a good teacher, and the one I had after him taught me a lot, too, but I'm just no proper musician. All I do is try not to draw too much attention to myself while swimming along with the others somehow. Leclair really is better than me. I mean, he's a good violinist, actually – if he doesn't doze during rehearsals or turn to look what's going on up on the stage while playing, that is."

"But you're good enough not to be noticed," Christine insisted.

"Hah! I'm just good enough not to be noticed by the bloody Communards, and they have bloody pigs' ears as far as music is concerned. Yesterday Erik made a list of all I managed to mess up during _Il Muto_, and it was quite long. And don't go and tell him off now, he was kind enough to go through my notes with me. Otherwise I might have messed it up even worse."

"You're not that bad," Christine comforted her fiancé, "whatever Erik might tell you. You know he likes teasing you." Or sometimes it was more taunting than teasing, and Christine did not really like it very much, but at the same time the Phantom gave the impression that he would rip anyone to shreds who tried to harm Raoul, so she rarely commented on it, only if his remarks grew too scathing.

"And I tease him right back, so what the Hell." Accompanied by his boyish snicker Christine found so endearing, Raoul nudged her aside a little to get his legs under the blanket. "For example, I painted his mask a bit yesterday."

"You did? Oh, Raoul, he must have been _furious_!" Strange she had not felt anything of the like during the whole day.

Oh, and Lord above, what was building up right now… Did he really have to… get so intimate?

"Furious? No. Not much, actually. It was just a bit of ink, really. He threw a soaked sponge at my head and made me wash it off again, that was about all. Oh, and he held my head under the water in the washbasin in the gentlemen's room that afternoon." Raoul shrugged. "Just the usual."

"He normally holds your head under the water? God, that's childish." Something like _that_ from grown men… Especially the Phantom was too old for this!

And if he did not stop what he was currently doing soon… But this was the trouble, she could not simply intervene. What was she to do, tell him to stop? It would be just too embarrassing. And who knew, if he managed to pull her in in some way, instead of an answer…

"Well, why not?" Raoul leaned over to her and kissed her temple. "What's the matter with you, love, shifting around like that? Do you itch somewhere or what? Shall I scratch you, perhaps?" He really had the sweetest of snickers imaginable.

"Don't be silly," she said hastily. Heavens, if this perhaps caught on and grabbed hold of her too… and Raoul was with her… At once it occurred to her that something might happen between them that was not quite planned.

To be honest, it had happened once before, but she had managed to convince Raoul that any more activities of that kind should better be postponed until they were married, and he had agreed, though a little grudgingly. Yet if Erik continued like this, if those waves of pleasure grew even stronger… She might just forget herself.

Oh, Erik, please, come to an end! Stop this! Or at least finish it quickly, please!

Heavens, what if he continued like this for hours and hours? What if he took all night?

Raoul's arm slid around her shoulders tenderly. "What's the matter with you? A little bit twitchy, are we? Are there ants on the sheet or something?"

"Raoul, please…"

"No, really. What's wrong? Fleas? Bedbugs? Cockroaches?"

"Raoul, that's horrible!" Christine shuddered at the mere idea of cockroaches in her bed.

"I'll keep on guessing if you don't tell me."

His breath tickled her cheek, and she felt inclined to cuddle against him, but she was afraid she might lose control over herself if she came too close to him. "Raoul… I think it would be better if you just sat on the edge of my bed again."

"Why?" Was she just imagining it, or did he really sound a little hurt? "Do I make you itch? Or do I… wait, do I make you feel like a decent girl is not supposed to feel?" She could hear it in his voice that he was grinning. "So you've seen reason at last, love, right? I mean, we're engaged for something, aren't we?"

"Raoul! Honestly!" Christine protested. "Look, it's… it's Erik's fault. He's doing something at the moment, something… well, you can probably guess what he's doing. And it comes to me over that connection between us, I can't help it." She was sure that her cheeks were deep crimson now.

"Erik? You must be kidding." Raoul laughed softly beside her, not moving away from her in the slightest. "You mean he's in bed with a girl? Hear, hear. Who is she? Not Meg, by any chance? I always suspected there was something going on between them."

Meg? "I don't think so," Christine said, trying to banish the disturbing images from her mind. The Phantom and her best friend… Of course they got on well together, no, more than this, they were very close, but picturing _that_… "I don't know who she is, and I don't want to know any details," she said decidedly.

But on the other hand… Some part of her _did_ want to know. Until now, Erik had been there for her, and only for her. When he now loved another woman, she wanted to know whom she would have to share his affection with from now on.

No. It was his own business. It was none of hers. He did not belong to her. How could she put a claim to him if she had rejected him earlier on? She had chosen Raoul over him, so Erik was free to offer his love to someone else. It would be cruel to demand of him to stay devoted to her forever while she belonged to another.

And still… Of course, he was very fond of Meg and her mother, and he was friends with a few other women as well, at least more or less, but until now she had always been his only one, the sole focus of his attention. While Raoul had been away, he had been there for her, and he had soothed and comforted her, despite the grief it caused him that when she threw her arms around his neck, it was only to cry for the one she had chosen over him.

She had been selfish, she felt. How could she ever expect him to stay like this forever, to love her and not be loved in return? What gave her the right to ask such a thing of him?

"I'll find out in the morning, then." Raoul snickered happily. "That does the old villain some good, getting to follow his instincts at last. And he can't be all over you when there's another girl expecting him to moon over her. Christine, that's absolutely brilliant!"

"I'm glad for him," Christine murmured. They both would have to learn to let go at last.

"So." Raoul was grinning broadly now. "And he's definitely having fun, and his current state is… contagious?"

"You might put it like that," Christine conceded, trying to sit as stiffly as possible.

"So you might call it luck I'm here, right? Come on, lie down again. There's a good girl. And now kiss me, how's that? A little kiss for your fluffy little cuddle-bear?"

"Raoul!" What was he doing there? What was he planning to do? "Do you mean to… take advantage of the situation?" She tried to sit up again, but he held her tight, lying half over her and kissing the side of her neck. "Raoul, we can't just – Stop it!"

"Why not?" he snickered, making no move to withdraw his hand from under the hem of her nightgown. "We would have been married already if not for the bloody Commune. So why let the Commune triumph over us?"

"It's not proper!" Oh, please, _please_ take your hand away!

"Who cares?"

"I do!" And the worst about it was, she _liked_ that hand to be under her nightshirt. In her current condition, how should she protest? How could she? She was not supposed to participate in any kind of activities Raoul seemed to have in mind right now, and she meant to keep him from it, but on the other hand, she wanted him to very much, just to soothe the hungry flame Erik had lit inside her.

Oh, Erik, was that really necessary?

Of course, it was good for him; he had craved for a woman's loving touch for far too long, all alone in his cold, dark cellars. He needed it. It would make him stronger.

Though it might also make him more vulnerable, but Christine did not want to consider that. She could not focus on anything any longer, anyway.

"As if we've never done it before," Raoul muttered dismissively, withdrawing his hand at last, but only to fumble with the few little buttons at the front of her nightdress. "Here, let me help you."

"But only this one time, and it was wrong then." Heavens, he was so absolutely right! Who would care? Who would ever find out? "We can't just do things like that." Yes, why not? "God sees everything."

"God doesn't give a damn." Sitting up, Raoul helped her out of her nightshirt, smothering her feeble attempts at resistance with caresses and kisses. "God doesn't bloody care. No, sorry, I'm not supposed to say things like that, but it's… it really doesn't matter. It just doesn't, alright? It's just our private little secret."

Yes, it was, it really was. He had been talking a lot to Erik lately, judging from what he said, but it wasn't important. Nothing was. Only their love.

No, she couldn't just…

Only this one time, a little voice whispered temptingly inside her head. Only this one time…

Which was the second time, in fact.

Yes, so there was nothing to lose anymore, or was there? Either way, she would not be a virgin anymore when she stood before the altar.

She was not supposed to do it, but it did not change anything. Not anymore.

Leaning down to her, Raoul tenderly brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "I love you," he murmured to her, his breath tickling her cheek, and the feeling that this was a forbidden moment they shared, against all bonds and conventions as it seemed to her, made her heart go faster. "God forgive me, but I do."

"I love you too, Raoul." Could she not forget all the death and destruction around her for just one night? Should she not be allowed to seek blissful oblivion in her fiancé's arms?

As he began to struggle with her undergarments, she smacked his hands away gently, but only to pull his shirt over his head. Laughing softly, he threw it out of the bed, then leaned down to kiss her greedily. His skin was smooth under her touch, smooth and warm.

And soon the Phantom's intense pleasure was mingled with her own.


	34. VI An Eternity of this

_Author's Note: A friend reminded me that the review replies became illegal ever since it became possible to directly answer reviews. Somehow I must have missed that. So I will stick with the rules and do it that way now. However, I doubt it is forbidden to say thanks to all my reviewers, so this is what I'm doing here: Thank you all, and I hope the delay will be forgiven._

-.-.-

**VI. An Eternity of this**

"_You have kept me waiting."_

_He dismounted, absent-mindedly patting his stallion's neck before he turned to face her. Curse her, she really was beautiful! "I apologize."_

"_You apologize, but you are not truly sorry." Her eyes were like dark gems, gleaming under her smooth black brows. "You are a proud man, Lord Keeper of the Gates."_

"_I have come alone, as you asked of me." What should his feelings matter to her? He was there, that was what she had wanted. He stood before her on the dusty road under a blazing summer sun, just where she had expected him._

"_So you have." Her smooth, even features betrayed nothing, nothing at all._

_He decided to be blunt. "What do you want?"_

_Now she smiled, but it was a cold smile, a façade. It did not reach her eyes. Her spirit lay hidden behind a mask of beauty. "Do you not know it yourself? And why have you come if you don't?"_

"_I can guess," he muttered. That accursed woman had a tendency to take control of every situation, something he truly detested in some. But she would not patronize him, no indeed! Sooner he would play the same game with her._

"_Have you spoken to the Herald of Fate yet?"_

"_Concerning which matter, precisely?" he asked back. She had called him here, so she should name the reason, and then he would decide whether he would stay or not. "And I bet you never mentioned to him you're trying to get me on my own."_

_Only a very short twitching of her lips told him that he was right. "I know he has arranged a meeting with you," she replied grudgingly. "And I know you two have met once before."_

"_Twice," he corrected. Not that it was any business of hers, but he liked her to be under the impression that she did not know everything. His horse whickered softly, and he took the time to give the stallion another pat before he turned to her again. After all, choosing between his horse and the Lady of Dreams, it was clear who was the more trustworthy._

"_Which about equals the number of women you've had since this week began," she commented._

"_I wonder why that should concern you." If you want to be counted among them, just ask._

"_You rate pleasure higher than most of your brethren."_

_Pulling off his leather gauntlets – it was a hot day, too hot to wear them, but all had to be done with style –, he tucked them behind his belt. "Let's discuss this some other time. I'm open to the topic, but I would like to know about today's issue first." And she would return to that particular topic, no doubt._

_Her eyes met his, attempting to delve into him, but he blocked her access easily. Again her lips twitched slightly. "Name your price," she demanded._

_So now they were coming to it. "What is it you would offer me?"_

"_I'm sure the Herald of Fate informed you of that."_

"_We discussed some aspects of it, yes." They had spoken about what he truly wanted, about his innermost desire, but it was bad enough that one other knew about it already. He would be banished to the Abyss before he told the Lady of Dreams! Revealing his heart's one true desire, his one burning passion that haunted him waking and dreaming, would be making himself vulnerable. He felt that the Herald of Fate held one piece of his heart in his fist already, ready to crush it to dust if he chose to, but there had been no other choice. He needed that bargain. He hated the Herald of Fate, but he needed him._

_The Lady of Dreams raised her elegantly curved eyebrows, lines of black on her bronze-coloured skin, and shot him an annoyingly knowing look. "You want more."_

_He chose to shrug instead of replying. How had she come here? The question only just now occurred to him. They were well away from their home, on the Road of Nerayamat that led to the Sanctum and then down to the Last City sprawling at the foothills of the sheer mountain range known as the Sundering Mountains; he had ridden four miles to this point, the place where the narrow path to the Ravines forked off. But she… there was no means of transportation to be seen, and he felt no living thing around him, apart from her and his faithful steed and some small creatures in the earth and the grass beside the road. Above his head, a lonely hawk was riding the gentle wind –_

_Of course. The Lady of Dreams rode the storm, so it was said, above the sea's foamy waves. Why should this skill not extend to the land?_

_Once again he realized how little he knew of his brethren, as she had called them. Having spent a dark, wild eternity at the margin of the world, defending it against what lay Beyond, he had returned as a complete stranger when he had been recalled at last after the Bearer of Light, greatest of their race, had been cast down into the Abyss. Away in his exile in the endless wastelands, nothing but vague rumours had come to him of the war waged upon the plains of his home of old. But then he had returned, bringing with him the most faithful among the faithful, the Black Legion, and he had fortified the dwelling of his kindred, manning it with those loyal to him to keep their unceasing watch, thus becoming the Keeper of the Gates._

_Turning, he smiled as he beheld the gleaming white towers, enshrouded in and crowned with soft clouds, so radiant in the sunlight, the symbol of the unceasing vigilance of the Light – the Pillars of Heaven. The strongest fortress ever envisioned, the mightiest bulwark ever built. For many lifetimes of men workers had laboured under his guidance, until at last the sun had shone on its completed glory, on his great triumph._

_His greatest, perhaps, though he had not yet decided on that matter. Among the things he had devised and built, certainly, but his greatest achievement altogether… After all, he had invented a new kind of trumpet which could not only be heard from very far off, but also possessed a considerably wider range than those instruments used by heralds before, he had painted the ceiling of the dome of the Sanctum – a nice distraction from overseeing the work on the Pillars of Heaven, though it had taken him two and a half decades to finish it –, he had written an epic he rather liked himself, though some of his kind had classified it as too violent and gory, and he had been the first to see every known part of the world. And he had composed the Hymn of Death._

_While the Eldest King would call the Pillars of Heaven his greatest achievement, the Lord of Shadows would name the Hymn of Death._

_A hand gently touched his shoulder, and a mind tenderly nudged his own. "I know what it means to you," the Lady of Dreams whispered._

_Turning back to her, he muttered, "No, you don't." She didn't. She had no idea. Even as he stood here under the sun, his heart lay in darkness, and it was torn in two, bleeding into the shadows. Never, never would she understand._

_When it came to a decision, where would his loyalty lie? And would there be any loyalty left, would this decision not kill him?_

_Was it not a curse to be deathless?_

"_I've never seen you so tormented."_

"_That would be because you have hardly yet seen me at all," he countered dryly. Tormented, yes. Tormented was the word. It was nothing but torment, choosing between his loyalty and his one true love._

"_Really?" At once she smiled. "That means I should see you more often. You're a pleasure to behold."_

"_Am I?" All by itself, he felt the answering smile steal onto his lips. At least she might prove a pleasant distraction._

"_Yes indeed. Do you always wear your jackets open like that?"_

_Looking down himself, he shrugged. "On hot days, yes. It can get pretty hot in velvet."_

"_And no shirt underneath?" she prompted. There was something in her eyes now, a certain sparkle he had not seen before._

"_Well, it _is _a hot day."_

_She laughed, like the sound of a clear, cold well up in the mountains. "If you do this in honour of me, it is appreciated. Did you know that the Herald of Fate recently called you a vain pretty-boy?"_

"_I did not realize," he replied calmly, almost contemptuously, "that he is capable of jealousy."_

"_Oh, he is, and very much so. And not about not looking as good as others in black velvet and leather, mainly. You know what his designs are about, don't you?"_

_He nodded. "Yes, I think I've got a pretty good idea what he's up to. And I don't like it, to say the very least." If they wanted his help in this, then it should not be easy for them, not at all._

_And maybe he would yet turn back. Maybe he would even go and seek an audience with the Eldest King, something he had never done before. He should. Part of him screamed out that he should, waking and dreaming, screamed and screamed and tore him apart. And always the same word: _Traitor

_And that knowing look the Lady of Dreams was throwing him… Anger boiled up inside him, but before he could snarl at her, she had already thrown her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulder, just as if this were the most natural thing in the world to do. For a moment he hesitated, confused, but then he wrapped his arms around her waist in turn. Very well, he would see where this was leading. That she only just meant to comfort him he strongly doubted. Not someone like her._

_Her hand came up to caress his cheek, and it almost surprised him that it was warm._

_Warm… warm…_

No. It was… cold…

Cold?

And then he felt a tentative, warm touch on his right cheek.

His mask! His mask was gone! The realization struck him like a bolt of lightning, every fibre in him convulsing as he sat up suddenly and pushed Valencienne's hand away to cover the marred side of his face with his own. No, this could not be true! It could not!

Valencienne's eyes were wide in the dim light of candles and braziers burning low. She had withdrawn reflexively as he had so suddenly moved, but her hand was still outstretched towards him. She had put on his shirt to cover her nakedness, he realized, like a nightshirt, and he would have laughed had he not been struck to the bone by the next cruel stroke Fate had prepared for him. This way, it was just another unimportant detail. Was that fear in her eyes? Disgust? Terror?

He felt he was shivering and hunched his shoulders, but the cold came from within him, not from without. It was all his own fault. He should have told her not to touch his mask, instead of trusting his manipulations. He should have asked her to. After all, she was bound to wonder why he allowed her to see and touch every inch of his body except the right side of his face.

He meant to curse her, but he could not blame her. She was curious, that was all. Just as Christine had been curious.

Christine… The moment when she had first taken his mask from him returned to his memory, and the pain was sharp and clear once more. Why was all happiness destroyed by his abhorrent features every time? Why was he cast out from Heaven forever?

A fallen angel, and far from Heaven.

_Traitor…_

No, I refuse to believe it! I will not!

And still he saw that face from his dream before him… the face of Niobe.

No. Please, no.

A sob was constricting his throat, and he fought it back, whimpering softly as he did so. He was a pathetic wretch, nothing more, and not worth to be still alive. He should have died long ago.

Valencienne's hand covered his, attempting to peel his fingers away. At first he resisted, hiding what had never allowed him to be human, but then he let it fall away limply. It did not matter anymore. It was in vain, anyway, too late to change what had occurred. She had seen him, and she knew.

It was over, and it served him right.

And then he felt her fingers tenderly stroking his burned, blistered skin. "Poor dear," she whispered. "That must have hurt a lot."

What…? Had Meg not said the same when she had first seen him unmasked? Meg had not screamed, and neither had Valencienne.

"Yes," he murmured, remembering that dread moment from his recurring nightmare when the flames enshrouded and consumed him, "yes, it did."

No, it's a lie! Nothing but a damn nightmare!

"Poor dear," Valencienne repeated tenderly. Then she leaned forward and gently placed a kiss on his scarred cheek.

Huddling against her like a child, the Phantom closed his eyes. He was dreaming. This could not be real. She was free of his influence, free to do whatever she herself would do, not what he wanted her to do, and still she did not flee in terror when she saw his face. A girl who hardly knew him! Meg had not run from him either, but Meg had already known him then. Whereas Valencienne… she had had no warning. "I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair. "I should have told you."

She simply stroked his hair, but he was not quite sure if she had understood him at all. "It's alright," she whispered to him. "No need to hide it."

"But I'm –" Gently loosing her arms around him, he sat up and looked at her directly, feeling more naked than ever before, even more than he would have felt had she taken the blanket away. "I'm a gargoyle."

"No, you're not."

"I am," he insisted. "I'm a monster. My own mother hated me."

"Then your mother is a blind old bat," she said decidedly. "Half a handsome face is still good enough for me." Reaching behind her, half out of the bed, she fished his trousers from the floor. "Here, put something on, and then lie down and sleep, it must be somewhere in the middle of the night."

He would have preferred to be given his mask back, but he complied without protest. She had been so kind to him, kinder than he deserved, after what he had done to her, so he would not make her feel awkward now, even though it astounded him that it was not his uncovered face that unsettled her. After all, his body was just like any other man's.

Oh well, a young woman would view that from a different perspective, probably, since there was a good chance he was the first naked man she had ever seen. She might not even have known what a naked man was supposed to look like – though she probably had had a vague idea at least; nobody could remain that innocent at the Maxim. Whereas scars… she might have seen scars before. There were pretty bad scars he had sometimes seen in the street, so maybe she had just taken a practical attitude.

All the same, he did not understand. It was hard to find a man as hideously scarred as he was – apart from some of Créon's followers, but they did not count. He was more than just scarred. He was a monster, a horrible monster!

When he had finished doing up his buttons, she gently pushed him down and spread the blanket over him, and as she kneeled beside him he realized that she was not only wearing his shirt, but also his underpants. Hell, she had actually borrowed his underwear! Now this was a set of ears Claire might want to box!

After she had finished boxing his, that was.

"Look, I'm really sorry," he said as she slipped under the blanket and lay down beside him. "About last evening, I mean." And it was true, he was. He was an ungrateful bastard, rewarding a woman's open interest with what might well be considered rape. He was a beast, a creature, a fiend from Hell. "I shouldn't have made you do it."

"But you didn't, silly," she whispered in his ear as she cuddled against him and rested her head on his shoulder. "You didn't force me." One of her hands came to rest on his upper stomach. "You were a bit… vigorous, yes. Impetuous. But you didn't force me."

"I manipulated you," he admitted. Yes, just as I tried with Christine. I should have known it was wrong. I did not mean to do it again. I never wanted to do it again, not on another innocent being like her. And still I did…

"Don't be ridiculous." Her hand wandered a little upwards and tickled his chest. "Gosh, you're hairy."

_Don't be ridiculous._ She didn't believe him. She did not believe in his powers. So she would never know, if he didn't tell her.

Rolling over, he nuzzled his head against the side of her neck, found a comfortable position, with one arm around her waist, and closed his eyes. She might stay with him. She might even come to love and cherish him. She might want to be his forever.

It was too much to imagine. Too good to be true.

And it would all be built on a lie. For keeping silent was a lie too, wasn't it?

He would tell her. He had to.

But not now. Not tonight. Tonight, he would savour what he had for now. He would rest in Valencienne's embrace while feeling Christine sleeping peacefully above him, once again becoming one with her as they shared yet something else… In their sleep, their minds had always been interwoven to a certain extent, at first with the purpose that the Phantom could change her nightmares away. After Christine had found out that he was not the Angel of Music, he had still continued to do so, and later, when she had understood what it was that he did, she had allowed him to. It had just become a habit, nuzzling their minds against each other like a pair of tired animal cubs before they fell asleep. He was in her dreams, and she was in his. It was what they had always done, only that now Christine had learned to actively participate.

But what they had shared last night… He had not quite realized that she would be able to feel what he was doing, he had just not thought of it, though he had thought of her all the time. Only when he had felt her, well, _answer_, he had remembered, and though the presence of Raoul in this had given him a stab like with a knife… It could not have been, Christine and him, but at least in this way they had shared an intimacy now, shared what they otherwise could not have shared. After he had curled up by Valencienne's side, his arms around her and hers around him, he had still felt what came from Christine, and he had smiled to himself as he had closed his eyes and rested his awareness against hers…

"You know, I might be angry with you in the morning," Valencienne murmured, again stroking his scarred cheek. "You didn't even tell me your name. Your proper name, I mean."

"Call me Erik," he muttered. After what had happened between them, she definitely belonged to that category.

"Erik? Fine." He felt how she threaded her fingers into his hair. "Erik, you're a bit of a scoundrel."

Smiling against the warm, soft side of her neck, he answered, "I know." But _you_ don't, you refused to know… Somehow his triumph tasted like ashes in his mouth now.

Valencienne laughed softly. "Ah, then it's alright…" And soon he could feel how her senses drifted off to sleep.

Lying awake, he listened to her calm, even breathing, and inside him a cold, dead voice whispered of treason, past, present and yet to come, of a lifetime, an eternity of betrayal.


	35. VII All I want is Freedom

**VII. All I want is Freedom**

Meg had breakfast with her mother, then went down to the cantina all the same. Not that she was still hungry – and it would not have been quite fair, since the cantina's food supplies had seemingly begun to shrink – but a morning in the cantina always was a social event, and she might still get a croissant. Just one.

"Meg! Meg!" It was Cécile Jammes, one of her ballet colleagues, waving frantically from the line waiting at the counter. With her pale, but merry face and long, slightly wavy blond hair, she was a rather pretty girl, though she herself found that she was plain and had an odd nose and kept lamenting about this.

"Good morning, Meg." It was Serge, who had entered the cantina behind her.

"Fine," Meg decided. "Now we're three. Let's grab a table."

"Four," Gaston corrected, appearing behind Serge.

It was too early for the tables to be fully occupied yet; the cantina always was mostly empty still at this time. Waving a greeting to a group of other dancers, Meg led the men to the end of a long table that had remained free, and Cécile soon joined them with a tray.

Gaston threw his jacket over the back of his chair, but did not sit down. "Anything I can get you?"

"Don't trouble yourself for me," Meg declined.

"No, just name it," he insisted. "Any wish a friend of the Lord Phantom might have is a command to me."

"It's really not necessary."

"Come on," Serge put in, "make him happy."

"Right," Meg agreed while Gaston playfully punched Serge in the shoulder, "I'd like a croissant with butter and honey then, and some milk, if you please."

Watching the men's retreating backs, she seriously wondered if she should tell Erik to have a word with Gaston. For Heaven's sake, he was not a servant! He had been one as a lad, and he had been quite happy then, but she knew that Erik considered him a friend rather than a servant.

The Lord Phantom. Tsk, tsk.

"Isn't he sweet?" Cécile giggled.

"Gaston? He's really nice, yes."

"No, the other one. The tall, silent one with the curls."

"Oh, you mean Serge." Oh dear, Cécile might be developing yet another of her infamous crushes… She would be entertaining the whole changing room again, no doubt. Very recently she had been telling everybody that Raoul was such a sweetheart. Of course he was, Meg had to agree, but Cécile hardly knew him. And then she had told everybody how much she would like to snuggle the Phantom…

"Oh!" Cécile squeaked. "Meg, look at that! The sweetest thing just appeared at the entrance! Any idea who he is? And the other two with him, I've never seen them before…" Her cheeks flushing rosy, she was already giggling again. "Oh Lord, now another sweet blonde has joined him! Meg, look at that!"

"Hush! I'll have to turn around discreetly." Meg found it hard not to giggle along. Cécile could be too funny at times, and the idea of looking at a pair of handsome blond lads just made her feel giggly inside.

They were with her before she could turn around completely, though, Roger at her one side, Sándor at the other. Blond sweeties? God, yes! And both at once! Meg was certain that something large was fluttering around inside her stomach right now, and the tips of its wings tickled her. "Good morning, sunshine," Roger grinned. "Do you think there's room for a couple of humble stagehands with the exalted ballerinas?"

"Exalted? Is that all?" Sándor threw him a scowl. "I always thought they were goddesses!"

"Now, now, Sándor," Lászlo said as Meg felt her cheeks heating, "this is a rather lame way to be charming." He and Aeternus had appeared behind them, all of them dressed in simple grey and brown. Apart from comments in Cecile's style, they wouldn't cause any at all.

"Who's the happy man sitting to your right?" Roger asked, gesturing to the jacket over the chair.

"Gaston," Meg said. "He and Serge are getting some breakfast."

"Then I will have the audacity to take the place to your left."

"And I will have the audacity to sit next to your friend," Sándor grinned, while Cécile blushed furiously and stared down at her plate, probably close to bursting from all the giggles building up inside her.

While Aeternus sat down beside Roger, wearing his usual mysterious smile, Lászlo went to join the queue at the counter. Halfway there he met Gaston and Serge returning with their trays, and they swapped a few words before the two returned to the table. After all, Lászlo was now working alongside them, moving around requisites with Gaston and hauling up and down backdrops in the flies with Serge. He was making himself very useful, it seemed, while Meg was not too sure about Roger and Sándor. They rather sat around waving at ballerinas, from what she had seen, but they made friends with everyone, and this was important in their current situation. They even knew part of the Communard bullies patrolling backstage by now.

As for Aeternus… Meg wondered if he did any kind of work at all. She had never even seen him backstage, come to think of it.

"Here you are." Gaston placed a tray in front of Meg, snatching off only a slice of bread and a glass of water for himself.

"Thanks, but is this enough for you? Gosh, you've brought me two croissants! Take one for yourself!"

Gaston smiled and shook his head. His brown hair looked shaggier than usual, and his skin seemed paler, and somehow his cheeks were hollow, instead of just his cheekbones protruding a little as normally. Was he tired? Was he ill, even? Meg decided to mention it to the Phantom, so he could have a word with him. Gaston had always been so kind to her; she did not want him to be sick in any way.

Or had Delannay's henchmen threatened him? Ever since the Phantom had killed five of them to avenge that unfortunate stage carpenter they had murdered for what they called spreading despondency, they had been wary, not killing, not even beating anyone, like they had done before, but threatening. They picked their victims and began by asking them all kinds of questions, and if he showed any signs of fear or weakness, they persisted cruelly.

In Gaston's case, it was easy enough to guess what they had been asking. After all, had he not told the Communards from the very beginning that they could never stand against "the Lord Phantom"?

My God, take care. Please take care.

There it was again, that pain in her stomach, as if a strong hand were contracting around her intestines… It was fear, she knew. Constant fear. Christine had mentioned just the same feeling, all the time.

Lászlo returned with a laden tray and started handing out plates, and Sándor and Roger laughed and were merry, and Cécile giggled, but Meg could not quite laugh along. Gaston and Serge were not laughing, either.

At once all conversations died down, and a whisper arose instead, an excited, uneasy whisper. "It's him!" Cécile breathed.

The cold hand's grip hardened sharply as Meg pictured Delannay standing in the doorway. Or LaCroix, that dark, scowling minion. Or both of them, maybe encircled by a ring of their men…

Serge was the first to be on his feet, and Gaston leapt up so hurriedly that he almost threw over his chair. "My Lord Phantom!"

Erik? Turning around, Meg saw that Gaston was right. There he was, immaculately dressed and swathed in his black cloak as usual, with his shoulder to the doorpost, observing the cantina's occupants quietly, like an overseer in a factory. Heavens, what was he doing there? He had never done that before! He moved around backstage, yes, but he never just stood there in plain sight without a reason for it. And at this time of day! He rarely ever came up early in the morning. What was the matter?

For a long moment he just stood there, his eyes on them, on Serge as it seemed, then he suddenly righted himself and came towards them, his cloak flowing behind him as he moved smoothly, gracefully. Many a pair of eyes followed him, but he ignored them, let the gazes slide off him like droplets of water, focusing only on what was ahead. Reaching Gaston, he leaned close to him and whispered a few words to him, and though Meg strained her ears she could not catch a single one. What had occurred? Was something wrong?

Gaston nodded and smiled a little, and she knew everything was alright. For now, it was. A wave of relief streamed through her, warm as sunlight on the roof in summer. Everything was alright.

Then he turned to her, and his eyes sparkled as they met hers. "Piglet," he muttered, quietly enough so that only those closest to her could hear it, and they had heard it before anyway, so it did not matter. "Worried, are you?"

"As long as nothing's wrong…" She shrugged, banishing all thoughts of what might have happened or might be happening at the moment without the Phantom knowing yet.

"No. Nothing wrong." What was he grinning at like that? Giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, he passed on to Aeternus, and his smooth features shifted into a frown briefly.

"He's quite stunning," Cécile whispered, leaning closely towards her over the table.

Meg nodded. Yes, he was. And his touch could so absolutely sweep her off her feet… Her mother would box her ears if she knew, but it did. It really did. He was her friend, but maybe he was a little more, too.

"Careful." Aeternus spoke quietly, but sharply, and Meg saw the Phantom stiffen. From the corner of her eye, she thought to see a group of men entering the room…

"They're blind to us," Aeternus said evenly. "Take over from me, if you wish."

The Phantom nodded. "I'll take them."

"Agreed. Remember the cloud."

Bewildered, Meg listened to their brief exchange. From what she could gather, Aeternus was manipulating someone and the Phantom intended to continue it. Those powers… They were so sneaky, in a way, not supposed to be allowed. Useful against the Communards, yes, but still… it was cheating, Meg felt, and very much so, if not even worse.

"I'm lowering that cloud of yours. Hold them."

"You've got them now," Aeternus disagreed. "I can let go. Plain blind spot will do, except if they come too close. But I'm here to help you if they do."

"I can handle them," the Phantom muttered angrily. Meg knew how he hated when someone tried to lecture him on something. And she trusted him that he could, whatever it was he was doing.

"Fine," Aeternus said. "Everybody, listen to me." He spoke quickly and with his voice lowered. "Those four at the entrance – don't turn around! – are henchmen of Delannay's. From what I could gather in a couple of seconds, the leader among them is a former soldier and in charge of one of the Communards' hosts of rabble, not exactly intelligent, but daring and potentially dangerous. He and two of the others are new here, while the last is the same who usually guards the stage door in the evening."

"Oh, _that_ one," Sándor interjected. Sitting with his face to the door, he was watching them fixedly. "That idiot."

Cécile looked utterly clueless, but Meg noticed that she hurried to nod her agreement – just because Sándor was blond, probably.

"Read him for me," the Phantom said curtly. "Extract all information you might find valuable."

"Ah." Once more Aeternus's features were unreadable. Meg knew he had come to visit her mother last night; she had told her so in the morning. "So you trust me after all."

"No, you have more experience." Meg recognized the Phantom's tight-lipped expression; he always wore it when he was grudgingly admitting something. Then he pushed his upper lip towards his nose with his lower lip, so that they formed a kind of pout, and scowled at the thin air. Oh, Erik… There were some things about him that were just delightfully funny.

She might have laughed, had her back not begun to hurt from sitting so stiffly. Could those Communard bastards just go again so she could have her breakfast in peace?

"They're coming," Serge hissed. "Looking around."

"They can't see us," Lászlo said soothingly, but the fact that he almost whispered still filled Meg with unease.

"So I can move again?" They could have told her earlier!

"Not too much, thank you." The way the Phantom muttered between his teeth revealed that he was concentrating on something – on creating that blind spot or whatever it was, probably. "It's harder to remove you from sight if you move around."

"But you're getting better," Aeternus remarked. "The last time, it was everyone you dimmed out. Now you can already perform the trick on a specific target, with the same method."

"Couldn't possibly do it by manipulating everyone separately," the Phantom growled. Did it only seem so to Meg, or was he really sweating?

Aeternus gestured, and simultaneously Lászlo and Sándor rose and left the table. "Watch this," Sándor whispered as he passed Meg, then they disappeared somewhere behind her back. Whatever were they up to again? Not to confront those men, hopefully?

"Single the leader out and march him out," Aeternus said softly. "Lászlo will hold him up in the corridor. He already knows what he needs to know."

At first the Phantom said nothing, then his lips suddenly thinned to a pale line. Was it anger on his face? Fury? Or just intense concentration? "Meg," he suddenly ordered, his voice sounding strangely clipped, "go after them. Gaston, Serge, you stay here. Aeternus, you go with me, but keep an eye on those remaining three once I let them go."

Pushing herself up from the table, Meg got to her feet. Why did her knees have to feel so wobbly just now? But the Phantom had assigned her a task, and she would carry it out. He had given her a little mission of her own! He was taking her with him to deal with that leader!

There they were, those men who had caused such a stir among her friends – and also among the others, as it seemed; while some were doing their best to ignore them and just continued eating, others kept shooting them uneasy glances or even watched them openly. In themselves, they were not overly noteworthy, just a group of four rough-looking men in clothes which had seen better days. They could have belonged to the Opéra Populaire's own workers, except that Meg had seen one of them lurking backstage before, together with others of Delannay's men.

Lászlo and Sándor were flanking the entrance, lingering as nonchalantly as possible. Could the Communards see them right now, if they turned around, or had the Phantom erased those two from their vision? Would she become visible once she moved away from the table?

Would Cécile eat her croissants once she was out of the door?

Even as this sudden suspicion entered her mind, one of the four men murmured a few words to the others, then turned and headed towards the door, and immediately, exchanging just a glance, Aeternus's men slipped out before him. Was _this_ the leader of the group? This short man, the shortest among them? This _dwarf_? She would have expected him to be the most harmless of the lot, despite his ugly sneer and unshaven face. But a façade could deceive; one who had spent her entire life at an opera house should know that. A face could be a mask, and a mask a face. Decidedly snatching up what was left of her first croissant, ignoring Cécile's giggle, Meg followed the man, her gaze fixed on his worn-out brown jacket, right between his shoulder blades.

As she slipped out through the entrance, she feared that everyone was looking at her, but then again, what did she care? Those who might wish her ill could not see her, and the others were colleagues and friends. She did not know everybody's name, but she knew the faces; she had seen them backstage often enough. They were her own kind.

Arriving on the corridor, she turned to the right. Ahead, Lászlo and Sándor were blocking it, the man she was supposed to follow just before them. Lászlo was speaking to him softly, while Sándor had his arms crossed and simply smirked.

"Get lost," the man snarled as Meg approached cautiously. Would he be able to see her now? "I don't care about what you might have to say."

"Too bad," Lászlo replied calmly, and once again Meg noticed how evident his accent was, though without making it bothersome to listen to him. It was clear that he was a foreigner, but he must have spent considerable time in France already. "You see, I know exactly who you are."

"I'm a man of the Commune," the intruder barked. Was that a hint of an accent his pronunciation carried as well, or just some kind of dialect from the south? "That will be quite enough for you. If not, we can discuss this before my commander any time." Meg could not see his face, only the back of his head with his light-coloured hair clipped short, but she was sure he wore a smug expression now.

"Oh, this you certainly are, Hermann Lando." Lászlo was smiling now. "As you were a man of the Emperor once, some years back when you served your time in Africa. But whose man, I wonder, were you when you served your time in jail?" He paused, and his smile widened a little. "Dear me, whatever did you do to your rifle?"

Meg could clearly tell that the man – Lando? – was uncomfortable now; he was shifting his position uncertainly, surely straining his recollection for any hint of a man reminding him of Lászlo. "It was an accident," he grumbled.

"An accident? Why would they lock up anyone for six full months if it was only an accident what happened to their rifle? Lando, Lando… you've always been a bad liar, you old crook. What's your allegiance? What is it you truly want?"

"Freedom." He almost bellowed the word, as sharply as a whipcrack.

"And what did you get?"

Suddenly Lando turned, not heeding Lászlo's taunt, and Meg braced herself to hold his gaze – surely she had made no sound, or had she? – but Lando's eyes were fixed on something else, right behind her…

She followed his gaze, and her breath caught in her throat. There he was at last, the Opera Ghost in all his dark glory. His hair, hanging down to his shoulders in lightly curled strands, black in the half-light, his mask shiny white as a skull, his eyes gleaming eerily, he had draped himself in his black cloak, and around him the shadows seethed and swirled. Meg knew that it was some kind of vision that he used on them all without a difference, but still it made her shiver. This was no longer Erik. The Opéra Populaire's legend had taken shape once more.

"That one is no Frenchman," Aeternus said gently, standing directly at the Phantom's shoulder but still nothing but a grey shadow. "He calls himself Lando, which is the answer to our riddle already, and quite a simple one. When he was born in one of the German countries, he was called Hermann Landau, which is a common name in the north. He was born German, the son of a Jewish craftsman, and he was a glovemaker before he went to join the army. He never rose to an officer's rank because he was generally not considered trustworthy. After some time he spent under arrest he left the army for good and came here, where he married a distant relative, who had an illegitimate daughter already. Now he's been here for about nine years, earning a living in his old profession… until the Commune uprising, that is. In their force of scoundrels he at last made his career. He's a captain of Delannay's grace now, and he is aspiring to rise higher yet. The purpose he has come for is a simple one: It is to hunt down and kill the Opera Ghost."

Listening to Aeternus's brief, hasty account, Meg watched the man who called himself Lando. His dark, beady eyes were oddly unfocused suddenly, and she assumed that either Aeternus or the Phantom himself was deep inside his mind now, freezing time or whatever it was they could do to a man. As Aeternus ended, she felt her hands clench into fists. He's come for Erik! My God, he wants Erik's head as a trophy to present to his superior in order to rise in rank! Meg hated this man, hated him as much as one could hate anyone.

Kill him, Erik! Kill him now! The wish did not even shock her any longer.

The Phantom gestured, and the focus returned to Lando's eyes. "Look at me," he commanded. "Look me in the eyes."

Obediently the man raised his head to face the Phantom. His head barely reached the Phantom's shoulder; he was hardly taller than Meg herself. "Who are you?" he demanded, but his voice sounded thin and uncertain, as if fighting against something restraining his tongue and his thoughts.

"I am the Master over every living soul here, the Lord of the Black Legion that will rise from the shadows. I am a man so evil that Hell would not take me, and instead I returned to the world of the mortals to usurp the throne of the King of the Catacombs. I am the one you mean to hunt, and who will from now on be hunting you." It seemed to Meg that the Phantom's eyes were alight with a cold fire. "Now go. Go and rejoin your men, and carry well in your heart what you have heard."

Again he gestured, and Lando lowered his head and slipped past him, back to the cantina. Then the Phantom turned to Aeternus, who smiled quietly.

"Great job, my Lord!" Sándor was grinning broadly.

But the Phantom did not heed him. "What will he remember?" he asked. Now that Lando was gone, the swirling shadows were gone as well.

Aeternus's expression did not alter. "Those words will be burned into his very soul," he answered. "And your face will haunt his dreams. The rest of us is erased from his memory, my men and your girl, I've seen to that. As for me, he never even saw me."

"Good." The Phantom caught Meg's eye, and for a little moment he smiled. "I will see you all later this morning, in the changing rooms behind the ballet school, ten o' clock sharp. Well, until then."

Aeternus nodded and gestured to his pair of retainers, who fell in behind him as they, too, returned to the cantina. At first Meg wanted to go after them, but then she hesitated. "Erik… where are you going?"

And why had he not killed Lando straight away, when he had had the chance?

But no, it was not wise to just murder a man in the middle of a corridor while this man's companions were awaiting him next door.

But he had done things like that. He had killed even more in the open. He could have done it. Why hadn't he?

Already about to stride down the corridor with his cloak billowing around him, he stopped in his track and turned back to her. "Install an additional trap for all those who try to remove a certain movable wall without proper caution. Don't spread crumbs on the floor, piglet, it's rude."

Looking down, Meg realized that her bit of croissant could barely be called one anymore, after she had clenched her fists so that it was squeezed into shapelessness. "I can still eat it," she decided.

"Then go and do that. And stay out of trouble."

"I liked your little speech."

He waved it away. "Oh, it was just some pointless stuff that came to my mind in the spur of the moment. Nothing special."

"Erik…" He seemed a little impatient to be on his way, but she just had to tell him. "Thanks for taking me with you just now. For trusting me."

And then he smiled, a true, warm smile like she had not seen from him in some time. "Just wait what I'll tell you up at the ballet school, you'll be amazed."

"Really?" Now this sounded like another exciting adventure! Of course, she had learned in those past months that there was a lot more to an adventure than she had imagined, that there could be blood and death and despair, but when Erik was with her, everything would be alright. She trusted that it would.

"Really, little one." It seemed that he was about to go, but then he stopped and came back towards her. "Do you know that feeling when it seems to you an ocean is carrying you onwards, and you can't fight it for the waves are too strong, and you feel they will carry you to the cliffs and smash you?"

Meg nodded, but did not truly understand. What was he trying to tell her? Did this still have to do with Lando and the Commune, or was this something entirely different?

The smile had not gone from his features. "Let's say I am confronting my fate at last, my own demons. Let's say I'm breaking those waves."


	36. VIII A Dream and nothing more

_Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, I'm rather busy with work for university currently, and besides there's _Valley of the Night _to work at as well now (though the Les Mis fans among you might not find that so bad maybe, lol). But I'll do my best to keep the chapters coming._

-.-.-

**VIII. A Dream and nothing more**

Valencienne rubbed her eyes and blinked into the morning light. For a moment she did not know where she was, then she realized that she was at her own home, the little room she had rented, in her own bed.

And she had just had a most inappropriate dream. In fact, it was so delightfully inappropriate that it made her want to giggle. If her landlady knew, she would turn her out for daring to dream such things under her roof.

Well, as long as she only just dreamed of such… _situations_… There could hardly be anything wrong with just dreaming, or could there?

Erik, his name had been. Why Erik, of all names? Why not Alexandre? When she had been younger, she had once made up an imaginary fiancé called Alexandre, a pretty lad with slightly curled blond hair and blue eyes, and still she fantasized about him sometimes, so she reasoned that she was bound to dream about a man called Alexandre. Well, maybe not. But then again, yes. She ought to have a bad conscience about deceiving Alexandre with another man, especially one with such an unusual name. But then again, Alexandre had never precisely made a call, so she might as well. If he was not going to turn up at her doorstep, she might consider Erik instead.

This was completely silly, of course, but a girl ought to be allowed some fantasies.

Lying back and tugging the woollen blanket around her comfortably, she tried to recall the details of her dreams. Soon she found that some made the blood pulse hotly in her cheeks.

The Maxim was totally spoiling her.

Her Erik had been a sweetheart. And he had had half a scarred face, poor dear. She seriously wondered where that idea might have come from – Alexandre certainly had not had scars of any kind – but then again, in her dreams there were some things for which she found no explanation rather often.

And he had claimed he was a ghost, the silly man.

Would she have preferred to wake up and really find herself in somebody else's bed, whatever his name might be? It was an intriguing thought, in a way, and a very embarrassing one at the same time. She was a decent girl, after all. She had always tried to be. Even Alexandre had not succeeded in doing anything improper in her presence. No, not with her. Not if all the Eriks in the world came running. They would have to marry her first.

Sitting up in bed, she threw back her blanket. Time to get up, or else the landlady would once again throw a couple of scathing remarks at her about laziness in young ladies. No matter how late at night she got back home, to her landlady everybody who did not get up early in the morning was a horrible slack.

With a sigh, she climbed out of bed and shook her long, tangled mane of dark hair out of her face. She caught her own eye in the round mirror she had put up over the little chest of drawers that had been here already when she had moved in, just like the hard, narrow bed and the old cupboard that always smelled of dust no matter how hard she scrubbed it. Heavens, did she look sleepy! She blinked a few times, hoping this would help her manage to keep her eyes a bit wider open, but was not quite convinced of her success.

And then she noticed something that made her blink yet again: There, over the collar of her nighshirt, was a pale red mark at the side of her neck, and another one beneath her throat…

Shame on you, Erik.

No. The hint of laughter beginning to appear on her features was suddenly wiped away, to be replaced by an expression of shock. She watched her own face in the mirror, but hardly realized it was her own. No dream could be as intense as that. Never.

Had she hurt her neck perhaps? But if so, she could not remember how.

There was a cold feeling seeping out from the pit of her stomach, through her whole body.

Could it have happened earlier on? That man Erik… or whatever his name truly was… he did exist after all, she was more or less certain. She had seen him. He had come to her, before she had had that dream about him. He had spoken to her… and kissed her without asking for her permission.

He had not been partially masked, though, like this one had been.

Strange, she could not remember going back home last night at all… With this thought came a new wave of cold, capturing her senses and paralyzing them…

Turning away decidedly, she shut her eyes tightly, then opened them again, facing the bed. On the night cabinet was a glass someone had apparently turned into a vase, for there was a red rose in it now, with a black ribbon around its stem. Leaning against it was an envelope, and it even had her name on it in black ink, in a flowing handwriting.

Lord in Heaven, whatever had happened to her?

Could it be that the landlady had brought her the letter and the flower while she had been asleep? No, she never did that, she always gave her the occasional letter down at the breakfast table. And she would never give her a flower, prudish creature that she was, especially not a red rose. And she would consider a black ribbon around the stem a sure sign of morbidity.

Well, in a way it was.

Valencienne picked up the letter, biting her tongue. How did it come to be here? Turning it around, a skull of red wax leered up at her, the most unusual seal that she had ever seen. Morbidity, indeed.

A memory stirred, a memory from last night's dream, of a silver-gleaming pendant on a man's bare chest, a pendant in the shape of a skull…

She broke the seal and tore the envelope open, shaking out a card with a black line around the edges, as if containing condolences. _My dear little one,_ she read, _I have taken you back home so you can avoid awkward questions. My thanks for last night, I am deeply indebted to you. Expect me to call again later on, though I cannot make any promises as for tonight. There is some pressing business I have to attend to, but once I'm done with it I will readily discuss your future career chances with you, especially as far as the Opéra Populaire is concerned. Until then, farewell. I will miss you on my little journey. Your obedient servant, O.G._

Valencienne closed her eyes and opened them again, but the letter's contents still had not changed. So it was true after all. It had not been a dream.

The complete, utter, total _bastard_!

And she herself, she was a fool, an idiotic, gullible, immature fool. How could she ever have allowed him to… to do what he had done? How could she? Had she fallen in love head over heels and melted away under the gaze of those strange turquoise eyes?

Did she love him? Did she love this man at all? She did not know. He had intrigued her, fascinated her, stunned her even… but love? At the moment, there was nothing but anger boiling inside her.

And there would be no Alexandre for her now. Not anymore. Not after what she had done with this Erik who called himself Opera Ghost.

And she had let him. Lord, she had really let him!

There was a sharp knock on the door, and Valencienne froze, the letter still in her hand. It must be her landlady! But why now, what did she want of her?

Before she could say anything, she door was opened, and Valencienne took a step backwards, clutching the letter to her convulsively. God! Hadn't she locked the door?

Her landlady mustered her sternly. She was a stern woman altogether, from her tight grey hair bun to her starched grey skirts. Her lips were thin, and the corners of her mouth, surrounded by a few wrinkles, always pointed slightly downwards. There she stood, gazing at Valencienne like at a convicted miscreant, her sharp gaze mustering her from her mussed hair to her bare toes, and Valencienne tried hard not to shiver, her nightshirt seeming thinner than ever suddenly. For a moment the landlady's eyes rested on the letter, then she raised her curved eyebrows knowingly. "_So_," she said.

"Y-yes?" Valencienne ventured. This one syllable had filled the room with threateningly hovering icicles. Lowering her head hastily, she hoped that the older woman had not seen those treacherous red marks on her neck.

"Who was he?" the landlady asked coldly.

Terror gripped Valencienne with iron clutches, rendering her helpless. "Who… who… who is he?" she stuttered, her head spinning, her vision spiralling around a pair of strangely turquoise eyes that stared at her from everywhere… It must be written on her face. It must be obvious. Lord, his eyes might well be shining out of her own, betraying her!

"He was here." The landlady's lips had gone very thin now.

"Nobody was here." How could there have been anyone? Dream or not, she had visited this Erik at his own home… at the Opéra Populaire? The cellars of the Opéra Populaire? Suddenly she was quite certain that she had gone there, sitting before him on a black horse, but her recollection was strangely hazy, just like a dream after waking…

"Don't lie to me," the landlady snapped. "I saw you, both of you, down on the street. He brought you here on a black horse, around four or five in the morning when decent people are asleep in their beds." She clicked her tongue in irritation, and in any other situation Valencienne might have found the sound comical. "Then you disappeared from view, and the staircase was empty and dark and I could hear no sound, but when I looked out of the window again, he was riding away. He wore a black cloak and had _horrible_ long hair."

God, it was true. It all was true. It had not been a dream…

"You know precisely what I told you about men," the landlady continued, her voice very low and dangerous, the corners of her mouth twitching. "There were to be no men brought here, no men at all. I made it quite clear to you, _my dear_." In her scathing tone, it became an insult. "That you work at that place of sin is bad enough already, but I would have expected you to at least keep your decency."

Valencienne wanted to protest, but there was nothing she could say. Struck dumb with shock and terror at what had really occurred, she did not find the words. She was to be turned out, she knew it, and thrown out on the street, but there was nothing left for her defence. Even Alexandre had dimmed to a mere wisp of smoke, and all that was left were Erik's smouldering eyes.

My God, he is real. He is real, and he is very far from the dream I had about him, back when I still was a romantic little girl…


	37. BOOK SIX: Watching the Sky

**Book** **Six: Watching the Sky**

I. No more Memories  
II. The true Distortion  
III. The garish Light of Day  
IV. Talk of Summertime  
V. Threaten and adore  
VI. Leading Ladies are a Trial  
VII. Everything and nothing  
VIII. Songs in my Head  
IX. Follow where the Limelight leads you  
X. Bound to love you

_Love is a peculiar thing, don't you think? A short time ago we were mortal enemies, and now, for a woman's love, we are companions. And for this love, I would follow you to the end of the world.  
_–Raoul de Chagny

_Do I make you suffer because I'm alone?  
Do I give you grief to quench my own  
When all I want is hold you anew?  
My Queen, I love you…_  
–Opera Ghost, A Midsummer Night's Dream


	38. I No more Memories

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: I sincerely apologize for the delay, there's an upcoming exam I have to work for. As always, thanks to all reviewers (congratsfor the 300th, Morleigh!)._

-.-.-

**I. No more Memories**

Stretched out on his bed, half covered by a blanket and a fluffy sheep's skin, the Phantom was reading. There was no point in sleeping; he had tried but given up on it soon enough. Instead, he had placed one of the braziers closer to the bed, stretched out comfortably and opened one of the scores Aeternus had just given him. At first he had doubted that those large volumes – especially the other one, the one about the valkyries, was huge – were genuine Wagner works, but the orchestral introduction describing the river Rhine had convinced him of its authenticity already.

As he read the notes, the music filled his head, and images formed, images of a wide, green river and a forest and steep mountains in a distance, and of a light beneath the waves, an unearthly gleam, the light of the legendary gold hidden in the deep waters, waiting to be discovered by the one who, according to prophecy, would forge himself a ring of it that would give him the power to rule the world…

It was pure bliss. Until now, he had left his comfortable place only once, and this had been to fetch a dictionary to look up some of the more unusual words he had encountered. Otherwise, he had spent his time hooked, unwilling to put the score away and do anything else. Occasionally he would glance at the watch lying on the pillow, but apart from that, he did not let anything disturb him.

The language was odd at times; there were words he was unable to find in the dictionary, and he left a tiny pencil cross on the edge of the page to remind him to ask Aeternus. And there were some splendid new words he had now learned, mainly insults. He had made a special mental note of _haariger_ _höckriger Geck_, which apparently meant hairy hunchbacked fop. It was definitely worth trying it out on someone – too bad the only one who would probably understand it was once again Aeternus, but the look on Aeternus's face was bound to be priceless.

He only sat up for a moment when he felt Christine waking above him. He was at the point where Alberich the dwarf was cursing the ring and all its future bearers, and the passage fascinated him greatly, but there was nothing more important than Christine. Nuzzling her awareness gently, he wondered if she would mention what had happened last night, or if she would prefer to act as if nothing had happened. Himself, he was not quite sure which he would prefer.

_Good morning, Erik. _It had an oddly awkward feel about it.

_Good morning, love._ To be honest, he felt just as awkward himself. He should have thought of it last night, remembered that Christine would sense any intense feeling he experienced. But even though he had been thinking of her all the time, he had not thought of that one thing. Satan take him, he was such a moron! Christine could even tell when he had to go to the lavatory rather badly, for Hell's sake! It had been so obvious, and still he had not thought of it!

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between them, then she asked, _Have you been up for long?_

_Quite, actually._ It hung between them like a corporeal thing, that unspoken secret they shared. _Say…_ He glanced at his watch lying on the pillow. _Would you care to be at the ballet school changing rooms in about half an hour, you and the kid? _Raoul would still be there with her, he knew it, just as he knew that little sting to his heart, like the stab of a needle. He had spent the night in a woman's arms, and he was full of warm affection for the girl at the thought of her, but still, his true place was at Christine's side.

_Well, yes. Why? And why just there?_

_Because Claire is down on the stage for practice today, so we won't be interrupted. As for the rest…_ He smiled to himself. _I'll tell you there. _Meg was bound to like it, and so would Raoul, probably, but he was not yet sure what Christine would have to say.

At first he had meant to go alone, but then… It had been because of the dream, he had to admit to himself. After that new dream, he had not wanted to be alone with his dark thoughts.

And he had seen it before. He had had a brief glimpse of it, back then when he had confronted and killed Niobe. The Road of Nerayamat, the Pillars of Heaven gleaming in the sun… It almost was one of his own memories now…

_A fallen angel, and far from Heaven._

_There was no father._

Who am I?

Pressing his fists to his temples, he clenched his teeth. No. No more.

As Christine prepared to get ready for the day, he returning his attention to _The Rhinegold_, trying to shut those cruel doubts out of his mind, but it was growing harder and harder to concentrate.

And then, very suddenly, he sensed something else, and the hailstorm of fire that had been slumbering subdued inside him began to roar with dire fury.


	39. II The true Distortion

**II. The true Distortion**

Rumour had it there were trapdoors.

One shouldn't pay too much attention to rumour, but in this case Lando found that it might be advisable.

The lantern was heavy, but it was the only one with closable shutters, and this was important. Lando did not intend to be seen too early. Keeping to the rail at the side of the dark spiral staircase, he made his way downwards carefully, faded wall hangings ghostly rippling above him on cold air like the breath of an abyss. No wonder all those people believed in a ghost of some sorts, he thought, this truly was no pleasant place. But he would find the man who was hiding down there, and he would either capture or kill him.

A memory stirred, a dim image inside his head. He had encountered a man in the corridor this morning, so it seemed, but he could not quite recall him, except that he had been tall and dark-haired and had had bright eyes. Apart from that, the recollection was oddly dim, as hazy as a dream half forgotten. And yet there was a feeling of unspoken dread, a terror of which he had only witnessed the shadow…

_I am the Master over every living soul here, the Lord of the Black Legion that will rise from the shadows. I am a man so evil that Hell would not take me, and instead I returned to the world of the mortals to usurp the throne of the King of the Catacombs. I am the one you mean to hunt, and who will from now on be hunting you._

Lord above.

He put it down to too much drink last night.

Lando was one of the men who prefer to stab an opponent in the back to an open duel, and yet he was not easily scared. While his companions had rather wanted to settle in with the others, he had chosen to go straight down immediately. General reconnoitring, he had told Delannay, and Delannay had not had the slightest objection. No, quite the contrary. The Head of the Council had rather seemed pleased, if one could ever call his sour expression pleased.

In the small beam of light from the mostly shuttered lantern, Lando saw that he had reached the end of the stairs. Now, there should be a wall somewhere here, after a short, narrow corridor that soon broadened, if he remembered it correctly, a wall that was not supposed to be there. A wall that could apparently be shifted aside, as LaCroix had told him.

There was no wall ahead of him, nor was there a corridor. Instead, there was a… curtain? A curtain? Now this was odd. Or maybe not, this was an opera house, after all.

Treading carefully, he tapped every flagstone with his heel sharply before he stepped on it. Maybe there were no trapdoors after all, but one had better be cautious in a black pit like this.

By the curtain he stopped, cautiously touching the heavy fabric. He had expected velvet, for reasons of drama, but to his surprise it rather felt like thick leather. This had not been on the map, he was sure. But then again, a curtain could easily be brushed aside.

As he slipped past it into a narrow corridor, a gaping maw of blackness, he smirked to himself. Phantom, I'm coming for you.

Soon the rough stone walls to either side began to move further apart as the corridor broadened. Now, there should be a wall somewhere, that wall they had all been going on about…

But wait. The corridor's direction changed. It suddenly made what might be considered a peculiar little bend, then led on into the darkness. This had not been on the map, either. Or rather, this had been behind the sketch of the wall added in pencil.

Those men who had searched this place before him had been complete idiots, he decided. There was no wall instead of an entrance, no wall at all.

Closing the lantern's shutters, he squinted into the darkness. The shadows surrounded and enshrouded him, as deep as if he had gone blind. He waited patiently, but his eyes did not get used to it. It was too dark down here to see.

How could anyone live here, in this most complete night imaginable?

There was no choice. If he wanted to go on, he would have to open the shutter again. Grinding his teeth, he did so, allowing a thin finger of light to crawl over the rough stone floor of the lowest cellar level, but even as he did so, he suddenly thought he could hear a noise, and immediately he closed it again, straining his ears. There was nothing but the almost inaudible sound of his own shallow breathing, nothing at all.

He had been imagining it, then. Maybe he should really not have drunken so much last night.

His right hand wandered down to his belt, loosening the dagger in its sheath, brushing over the long knife's hilt, then briefly caressing the pair of pistols. He had come equipped for all eventualities. Most eventualities, anyway; he had asked for a couple of small explosives but Delannay had said no. Perhaps it was risky, the man might be correct there, but what would cave in, apart from part of the lower cellars maybe? Nothing important, anyway.

Just as he wanted to slide the shutter open a little once again, it seemed to him that there was a dim light coming towards him, a dim, flickering light… Lando blinked hard, drawing one of the pistols. Yes, he was right this time. It was an unsteady light coming around a corner, a dancing light like that of fire. Carefully depositing the lantern on the ground, Lando pressed against the wall, raising the hand holding the pistol slowly. He should snap-cock it now, he knew it, but its soft click might warn whoever was coming towards him. However, surprise was on Lando's side, no doubt. And the other would be fully illuminated, while himself he was hiding in the shadows.

I have you now, whoever you are…

Could he already hear footsteps around the corner? He was not sure, whoever was approaching treaded very softly, just as if he knew Lando was ready to ambush him. The light increased and flickered over the dark flagstones. Yes, there were footsteps now, soft yet firm. Someone was coming towards him. Lando could feel his own heart thunder in his chest as he strained to breathe as softly as he could. Any moment now, any moment…

A man came around the corner, tall and dressed all in black, a brightly burning torch in one hand. His face was hidden behind a black mask over which hung a few strands of long dark hair. Lando's hand shot up, snap-cocking the pistol as he took aim –

Or at least this was what he meant to do, because suddenly he realized that he had not moved at all… and that the masked man had stopped and was looking directly at him. His eyes glittered eerily amid the blackness.

No! Damn this all! Lando desperately tried to move, but he could not. Something held him back, an invisible power so strong that he could not even shift a finger. Rooted to the spot, all he could do as panic began to seize him was stare at the man before him.

"Eager to see me, are you?" Clearly it was the man who was speaking, but his voice seemed to come from everywhere, a whisper from every cranny in the cold stone wall. "And too stubborn to be frightened? Though you're learning, I can feel your fear…" The lips beneath the mask shifted into what could only be called a leer. "Did they tell you what happened to those five out in the foyer last month? No? Not even that they were found dangling from the chandelier?"

Lando could almost feel the moisture receding from his mouth bit by bit, until his tongue was as dry as a scrap of leather. Five men hanging from the chandelier… Yes, this was what others had told him. It had not been in the papers, of course, but he had heard it as soon as he had entered the Opéra Populaire. Everybody knew it here. And everybody knew who had done it.

It had been foolish to come down here alone, he realized. He should have made others come with him. This murdering lunatic had dealt with five of Delannay's men at once, so one single man should present no problem for him!

"Yes," the Phantom said gently, just as if he had heard Lando's thoughts, his voice ghostly echoing in the dark corridor, "you're doomed, my friend."

Not even retreat was possible anymore, not even pressing back against the wall. Lando's limbs did not obey him any longer. He had found the man he had been hunting for, only to realize that he himself was the one being hunted.

Suddenly the Phantom was very close, towering above him. "Drop your gun," he commanded.

At once the tight grip of Lando's fingers opened, and the pistol clattered to the floor. Then his hand froze once more, in a grotesque imitation of claws ready to strike. And yet they were unable to.

And then a gloved hand grabbed his chin and yanked it up roughly. The Phantom's bright eyes found his, and at once he recognized that this was the same man mysteriously branded into his memory. They were cold, those gleaming eyes, and at the same time on fire. An icy Hell was raging in those eyes.

After what seemed like an eternity and still only was a moment, he spoke again, and his words came to Lando through a glittering, spiralling haze. "They say that I am distorted. Maybe they would speak differently if they had seen your ugly little soul."

And then, at once, the hand fell away, and Lando staggered backwards, brushing past the rough wall with his back. "Go," the Phantom commanded. "You owe your life to the woman who already saved mine. Now run, run for your life, before I change my mind!"

Lando did not even think as he suddenly regained control over his body. More stumbling than running, he made it back to the staircase and hastened back its vast spiralling length, upwards, towards the distant light. Once a black maw suddenly opened beneath him, and he would have fallen into an unfathomable abyss had he not gripped the rail and dragged himself on, away from that terror lurking in the darkness. All the time, he thought to hear a cold, cruel laughter in his head, and it chilled the marrow in his bones.


	40. III The garish Light of Day

_Author's Note: Sorry about the delay. I was away part of the time, and working on_ Valley of the Night _for the other part. I'll be away again next week, but I'll try and make the wait shorter this time._

-.-.-

**III. The garish Light of Day**

Everything was ready. The horses were stamping their hooves impatiently, snorting and tossing their heads, while Gaston, Serge and Lászlo once again checked the saddlebags. Senta was prancing around them happily, wagging with enthusiasm.

"Did you pack the biscuits?" Meg asked for what probably was the fifth time, and Raoul rolled his eyes at her instead of a reply, which, for some reason, she found funny. Biscuits! Ever since their dismissal from the ballet school, he and Gaston had been busy getting their hands on all the supplies they needed, and all Meg was interested in were the silly biscuits!

He caught Christine's eyes, and they exchanged a silent smile. Once again they were setting out on an adventure together, and this one seemed just as surreal as those they had gone through in the cellars a couple of months ago, far from the light of the sun. Now, in bright daylight, it was more dream than real memory.

This current adventure was not quite as remote as the last, and still… It was an outrageous idea, that was the reason why it seemed surreal to Raoul. It was a crazy, outrageous thing to do that went beyond all imagination.

At the entrance of the Opera House, quite undisturbed by passers-by and some employees as well as a handful of Commune mercenaries, the Phantom was discussing something quietly with Aeternus. He was dressed all in black once again, and Aeternus all in grey, but while Aeternus really had the tendency to make one believe he was about to fade into the background, the Phantom was as obvious as a major landmark. Probably one of them was creating a blind spot for them once again, or otherwise this would be far too risky. But still, Raoul felt an unpleasant tingling sensation at the pit of his stomach. Nervousness. The same nervousness he had felt when he had said goodbye to the ship he had served on, the _Rights of Man_, to be moved to the cavalry. The same nervousness that had taken him when going into battle.

Briefly his gaze flickered to Christine again. There she sat, bolt upright in the saddle of a patient grey mare they had gotten out of Roger's parents' stables, dressed in some of his clothes and wrapped in his army coat, pale but smiling. She was excited to be out, just like Meg, and certainly glad to smell some fresh air again. But should she be out in times like these? He did not fear for himself, but for her. If anything happened to Christine, he would never forgive himself.

Neither would the Phantom, and this was the most soothing thought Raoul could summon up at the moment. When he did his best to protect his fiancée, he knew that at the same time someone else was ready to sacrifice everything for her just as well. Against all danger, he and the Phantom stood together, shoulder to shoulder.

Sándor came hurrying out of the entrance, slipping past a pair of mercenaries, who did not even follow him with their eyes. Indeed, there must be some blind spot around them all, around every single one of them! As the fair-haired lad made his report to the Phantom and Aeternus, Raoul could not quite suppress a feeling of unease as he imagined those mysterious powers all around him, like a cloak. They _must_ be somewhere around him, or weren't they? Were they just in the Commune's men's heads? He did not quite understand how it worked. Christine did, as it seemed, and Christine was part of this all in a way Raoul did not like at all, but...

The thought slipped away from him and was forgotten as suddenly a slim, dark-haired female figure, dressed in plain dark wool, came straight towards them. She was quite pretty, Raoul noticed, but otherwise he hardly registered her appearance. She was coming _towards him and his friends_! She could _see_ them!

Automatically he turned his gaze on the Phantom and Aeternus, the memory of Niobe suddenly fresh and chilling in his mind. Aeternus was staying behind, his expression unreadable as ever, while the Phantom had taken a few steps towards the woman, though somewhat uncertainly…

Were they allowing her to see them, for some reason? Raoul wondered while he observed the Phantom's awkward approach. They must, for how should she be able to find them otherwise?

Except if she was one of… them. The Lost Ones. The thought sent a tiny cold chill down his spine, like the tip of a knife gently running down his back.

And then suddenly he understood. So this was the girl, then? The girl from last night? Ah, of course, he should have recognized her straight away. The pretty little singer from the Maxim. He could have guessed so, though his immediate suspicions had run in the direction of one of the Poussepain sisters. So the Phantom had captured his prey of preference after all –

And now she turned up with a little suitcase in each hand and a hat box under one arm. Raoul could have laughed out loud. Perhaps the Phantom should have given this all a little more thought, because, judging from what was visible of his expression beneath his black mask, the idea that she might want to move in with him had never occurred to him. Lord, a girl meaning to move in with the Phantom against his will! It was just too perfectly funny to be true!

So it was the Phantom who controlled their cover, or at least it was very probable that it was him. Could he have done it some time back, Raoul suddenly asked himself, or had he learned this only just now?

As the girl realized that she was watched by several others, she hesitated and her stride slowed considerably. For a moment she lowered her head, a blush beginning to crawl over her cheeks, but then she threw it back again decidedly. "Erik," she said in a somewhat weak attempt at a firm voice, "my landlady threw me out. Because of you."

"Oh." If Raoul had ever seen the Phantom looking sheepish, then it was now. "She saw me after all?"

"Yes, she did," the young singer snapped. "You just left and allowed yourself to be seen, and now I'm out on the street."

"I… I'm sorry." Had the Phantom really just _stuttered_? "I'll try and put it right, but just now… you see, I should… I ought to –"

With a loud thud that made Gaston jump, turn around and join the onlookers, the girl dropped both suitcases on the cobblestones. "You don't really care, or do you?" Her cheeks were pale now, but her chin was thrust out aggressively. "You don't care one bit what happens to me, because all you wanted was…" Here she stopped, and the blush rapidly returned. Her eyes flickered to the ring of spectators and their horses, then she decided to stare at her feet, her lips pressed together to a line, and contented herself with placing the hat box atop the suitcases. Raoul could see that her fingers trembled as she did so.

"Erik…" Everybody looked at Christine as she suddenly spoke up. "If she is your, you know, girlfriend, then you should really take care of this problem."

There was a whispering among the assembled, and Raoul saw how Meg's dark eyes suddenly widened in surprise. Of course, he and Christine were the only ones who knew what had happened last night. But not for long now. Once Meg and Gaston knew, others would know too, and soon, and the news that the Phantom had found a girl would spread like fire in a dry forest.

"Trust me, I will." There was just a hint of impatience in the Phantom's voice. "Listen, I'll find you a new place to live, a lot better than your old room, or I can get you a place with the chorus girls, whatever you want, and if you insist I'll let you stay at my place for now, but I have to be off now. There's a matter of importance we have to attend to, you see…"

"But surely we can wait for a moment," Raoul interjected. God, the poor girl was on the verge of tears! They could not just leave her here and ride away! Honestly, did the Phantom possess no feeling of tact at all? He leapt off his horse, which whickered softly and used the opportunity to nudge him in the shoulder with its muzzle, and let Serge take the reins for him. "I can take her things downstairs," he offered, "that is…" Now this was a question of common politeness. "If you will permit me, mademoiselle?"

The girl actually managed a little smile. She was a pretty one indeed, with fair skin and elegant dark brows, her dark brown hair held up by a set of needles in a style that seemed simple at the same time as elegant.

"Let me do it." At once Gaston was at his shoulder. "A vicomte should not have to carry luggage."

Raoul sighed. "I'm not a vicomte now, keep that in mind. And I can still carry luggage, no matter who my parents are."

Gaston shifted his position grudgingly. "Yes, Monsieur de Chagny."

"That will be Raoul. Thank you. I'm just a violinist, after all."

"Yes, but –" Gaston's gaze flickered over to the young singer, then he fell silent, and his expression became guilty as he realized that he might be endangering Raoul's cover. Not that this girl looked like someone who would report a man to get a reward, but one could never be suspicious enough.

"Well, you just heard it, mademoiselle," he continued, already reaching for the suitcases and not looking at the Phantom, "I'm Raoul, and I'm in the orchestra." It was better if she forget about the rest. "Would you like to audition for the chorus? In this case, Mademoiselle Lachetelle here will be your colleague." And he nodded towards Christine. Damn, he probably sounded ridiculous, but he was doing his best. After all, he was very grateful to this girl for luring the Phantom's hungry attention away from his fiancée.

The two girls smiled at each other, and for a moment Raoul wondered what the Phantom's new acquaintance would feel when she learned that it was Christine her lover truly fancied. But his fiancée would surely be relieved now, or would she? Yes, of course she would. Her smile certainly was welcoming. "I'm Christine," she said. "In the chorus we're on first name terms." And apart from that, she did not particularly enjoy having to assume an alias, Raoul knew.

"Valencienne," the girl answered softly.

And then everybody tried to introduce themselves at once, except Meg, who hesitated a little for some reason. Strange, she normally liked making new friends. What could be wrong with her this time? Was she jealous, perhaps? After all, for some time Raoul had suspected that she and the Phantom were lovers… But they weren't, and he should not jump to hasty conclusions. Perhaps Meg had some other reason. Yes, probably she had.

And besides, it was none of his business, anyway.

Surprisingly, the Phantom remained quiet. Not quite looking at the girl, he seemed very awkward, his head lowered, his lips pushed slightly forward as if in a defiant pout. Slipping past Sándor, who showed a certain interest in the girl, Raoul approached him and gently nudged him in the shoulder, giving him a friendly grin. "So that's, you know, last night's company?"

The reaction was more violent than expected. "What business is that of yours?" the Phantom hissed, his bright eyes flashing from beneath the mask. "You take my girl from me, and then you won't even –"

"Erik, stop that," Raoul cut in, softly yet firmly. Like a wounded beast, the Phantom would lash out in any direction, still blind from his past pain. "I'm glad you found yourself a girl, that's all, and you've had a good hand, if I may say so." He winked at him, but the Phantom still glowered. Surely he was ashamed already of his outburst, but he would not admit it, never. Raoul sighed inwardly. At least he had not jumped at him and tried to tear off his head or similar; a couple of months ago Raoul would not have put this kind of thing past him. One day that old wound would be healed, hopefully, and this girl was the first step in that direction. "I know you had a lot of fun last night," he added in a whisper. "You see, girls do want you. And now think of Geneviève and Victorine. It would have worked with them too, no doubt. Or little Cécile Jammes, how's that? That one has an eye on you, I swear."

"On you, rather," the Phantom grumbled, watching grimly how Sándor was already trying to be charming.

"On me? Never!" Or if it was true, Raoul had not yet noticed it. Yet he doubted it was, for Christine would have spotted it straight away and ordered him to stay away from the girl.

He realized that Aeternus was watching them from some distance, and suddenly he wondered if the Lost One was reading someone's mind at the moment, perhaps even his own, to learn what had happened last night…

"He's not," the Phantom said softly, and Raoul did not even ask anymore how he knew what he had been thinking. "We've reached a certain agreement, and part of the terms was that he won't touch some people without my permission. If he were, I would know. I can see it now. I can see the damn lines, bright as daylight." For a moment he bared his teeth in a silent snarl. "And I can hear your every accursed thought, now you're standing so close beside me."

"I don't understand," Raoul admitted. Lines? He had heard about points of light, like stars in the nightly sky when the Phantom closed his eyes, the image of all living things around him. But lines? What lines? And what did this have to do with his own thoughts?

There was no need to form a question. "When someone touches your mind, kid, it forms a temporary connection. I can see it now, like a silver line of twinkling dust particles." This time he did not snarl anymore, but sighed, and suddenly he looked weary. For the first time Raoul wondered if the Phantom might not be quite comfortable with his mysterious powers. "What I mean is, I'm growing stronger. I first saw them this morning, when Aeternus was messing with those filthy Communards. And when someone gets too close to me, I don't even have to try anymore to read his thoughts and feelings. They're just there." He sighed again. "I'm sorry to have scared you, even if it is just a little."

Raoul nodded slowly. "It's fine, don't worry about it." But it truly was eerie, how the Phantom knew all this. Some time ago he had at least not done it all the time. Raoul had known that he might well do it, but mostly he had been kind enough not to. But now…

No. This changes nothing. And I have no secrets I'm trying so hard to keep.

The Phantom gave him a wry smile. "I'll try and learn how to ignore it best."

"Thanks." What was it like for Christine, knowing the Phantom was so closely aware of her all the time? Maybe she felt just like he was feeling now. "Is it…" No, he had better not ask this, it would only cause another little outburst of anger. But then again, the Phantom would probably know all the same, if he asked aloud or not. "Do you think those powers might grow too much to handle? Like, out of control?"

The Phantom pressed his lips together, watching seemingly impassively how Valencienne was introduced to Senta. "I don't know," he said at last. "But now I'm afraid they might."

Such openness was not new, but still not frequent. Friendship was growing slowly, trust needed time. After the briefest consideration, Raoul decided to use the moment. "You've had that nightmare again, haven't you?"

And indeed, the Phantom was honest once again. "Another one. A new one." At first it seemed that he was going to speak about it, but then the circle before them broke up, and Valencienne was approaching them with a somewhat weak attempt at an expression of determination, Christine and Meg right at her shoulders. Heavens, women could sometimes get together and gang up on men without even knowing each other properly! And hadn't Meg seemed hesitant and suspicious just before? God! How was anyone supposed _not_ to get confused around those girls?

"Erik," Valencienne said, "you can't just go away and leave me here. I have nowhere to go." The other two girls nodded to that, while Gaston and Serge exchanged a bewildered glance. Obviously they had no clue what was going on here, just as Raoul was beginning to feel.

The Phantom sighed. The hardness was gone from what was visible of his features… but then it returned, and Raoul felt a flash of cold fear as he snarled once more. Lord, what was he going to do? What rage, what madness had taken him again?

And had he felt that thought now? God, what would he do?

"So what would you have me do?" the Phantom growled. "Stay with you forever? You've never seen me under the sun, you have no idea who I am!"

"Erik…" Christine moved forward, reaching out for him tentatively, and Raoul cursed himself for bringing up those baleful nightmares. The Phantom had been enough on edge already without him reminding him of something else that would only make it worse!

But the Phantom pulled away from her, fixing Valencienne with his glare, ignoring all others. His voice was harsh now, and on the edge of trembling. "Obviously you haven't quite understood last night. I told you what I did, and you saw my face. Wasn't that warning enough? But no, you wouldn't believe me. You want to come with me? There, think again." And with one swift motion he tore off his mask, uncovering the raw red burn marks that disfigured the right side of his face. "It's your chance to reconsider. Use it well."

Raoul stood frozen, not knowing what to do, all the time feeling that this was all his own fault. Why had he been so stupid to ask? He should have known the Phantom might have another fit of this kind. He should have guessed so! After all, he knew his violent mood swings all too well. And now this poor girl had to face him, and how small and pale she suddenly seemed, how fragile…

Valencienne held his gaze firmly, one hand resting on her hip, pale but determined. "I'm coming with you, and if it is a journey to the end of the world!"

For several seconds they all stood in silence, a heavy, awkward silence that made Raoul want to edge away quietly and hide behind one of the pillars until this all was over. Then the Phantom slowly lowered his head and murmured something that might have been an apology, and Raoul instinctively knew that he was feeling worse than he himself did. When he had been younger, he had had problems with controlling his temper too sometimes, and he had been very embarrassed after each unnecessary fit of fury, especially when his father had been there and seen it, said nothing but still seen it… "It's alright, Erik," he said. The next moment he felt foolish already. But at least he had said something.

There was a pause in which the Phantom said nothing, just put his mask back on in a way that seemed, in comparison to his usual grace, oddly clumsy, and in which Raoul's embarrassment grew. But then, as Raoul already inwardly dreaded that they would stand there and stare at the ground awkwardly forever, Valencienne spoke again. Was that pity on her features, that sudden expression of affection, of… Raoul could not quite put a name to it. "What I told you last night… it still holds true."

Slowly, very slowly the Phantom raised his head, and the light caught in his eyes and made them gleam for a moment. And then he nodded, just the slightest inclination of his head, but a nod nonetheless. "I'll just… I'll take your things down, shall I?"

"But my Lord –" Gaston had already reached for Valencienne's luggage.

"Gaston… no. You wouldn't understand, but…" He spoke very softly suddenly. "It means something to me, right now." Taking up Valencienne's belongings, he gave the others a brief nod. "I'll be back with you in a moment," he said lightly, almost too lightly for it to be authentic. "Aeternus, have an eye on things up here. And stick to our agreement."

"I will keep my word," Aeternus replied calmly, and Valencienne turned her head in surprise, as if she had just noticed him for the first time. Suddenly Raoul wondered if he had introduced himself at all. At least he had not seen him do it, but he had not always watched the others, so perhaps… Bloody Hell, this man was invisible even in the brightest sunlight!

And maybe this was what the Phantom had to get away from for a moment, Raoul thought as his companion passed the guards unheedingly and disappeared through the main entrance. This scene had been embarrassing for the witnesses already. How much worse must it had felt for the Phantom himself! Maybe he needed his darkness again now, just for a little time, to regain his composure.

And as Raoul regarded the plaza before the Opéra Populaire now, this square of cobblestones with its café and the shops and pretty houses, the light of the sun suddenly felt garish to him, too sharp, too bright.

Maybe the night could truly be a warm, soothing blanket. Maybe there was some consolation in the darkness, after all.


	41. IV Talk of Summertime

**IV. Talk of Summertime**

Madame Giry watched the proceedings behind the stage with a wariness she had recently adopted. Ever since Delannay and his men had come to turn the Opéra Populaire into something similar to their headquarters, she expected thieves and assassins to sneak around among the singers and dancers and stagehands, grey specks amidst the swirling colours of costumes, invisible until it was too late… Especially now the Phantom was gone, she felt how she and all her colleagues were more vulnerable than ever. What if something happened in his absence? Who would be there to defend them?

In the wings opposite her, Maurice de Bracy was leaning against a waiting prop with one shoulder, his coat over his arm and his hat in his hand, the ferret draped graciously over his shoulder like a rich lady's fur collar, and watching the milling about with obvious calm, like a rock oblivious of the waves beating against it. From time to time their eyes met, but he gave no sign of recognition, and neither did she. After all, both of them knew that the pair of armed men patrolling about seemingly aimlessly behind the stage were watching them.

She especially paid no attention to Gérard de Chateaupers, who was busy passing sandbags to a man on one of the galleries above him so he could affix them to the ropes meant to carry the counterweights for the backdrops. What Chateaupers was doing was very dangerous indeed; after handing over yet another of his conspiracy's letters to the Phantom for delivery, he had picked up a long-haired wig somewhere and now pretended to be a stagehand, for whatever purpose. But despite his wild tangle of hair, Delannay was bound to recognize him if he saw him up close, and others might as well. Of course, the Commune Council was busy otherwise at the moment, what with all the riots in the streets of which news had reached the Opera House this morning, but all the same, if one of them happened to come here…

A line of prop makers, among them Lászlo, carried in armfuls of fake branches, which they began tucking into their sockets in a model tree. Such a process usually still succeeded in amusing Madame Giry after all these years she had spent here, but not today. Not anymore.

One by one, the ballet members came on stage, fresh from the changing rooms and in their costumes for the third act of Chalumeau's _Hannibal_. Meg said they all were growing fed up with _Hannibal_, but when Delannay decreed to use it as means to raise the patriotic sentiment, what could she and Reyer and the managers do about it? Of course Xavier was surrounded by a flock of giggling girls, and of course little Cécile Jammes was one of them. And, needless to say, Xavier was one of those who giggled the most. But this time, there were two new faces among the other lads eager to join the group. It was not hard to identify Sándor and young Roger de Castelot-Barbezac, even in the chorus's armour and sporting helmets and fake beards.

This was growing more and more dangerous by the minute. Weren't those two supposed to be stagehands?

Did the Phantom know of this at all? Or were they doing as he had instructed?

"No need to worry, madame," a voice said by her ear, in a whisper that might as well have come from inside her head, as she felt. "I was told to keep an eye on the lot. Especially on Chateaupers, the young baron and the Chagny couple."

"The… " Despite herself, Madame Giry turned to face Aeternus. "You can't mean that the Vicomte de Chagny and his wife are here."

"Oh, I do," Aeternus replied evenly, his unreadable blue eyes gliding over the crowd, ever watchful. "Your friend let me know that they are no longer safe. Chateaupers has been replaced by a man called LaCroix, did you know that? At the moment he may still leave his house, but who can tell how long this will take? When will they sign the arrest warrant, when the order of execution? So he had them all moved here, and he asked me to make sure they are as safe as they would be with him to watch over them. As a matter of fact, he threatened me with various gruesome things." He chuckled dryly. "Still the same man as he always was, the worthy Lord Wraith."

Madame Giry merely sighed, watching her dancers form a line and start warming up. She had seriously begun to wonder last night when she had lain awake if it would do any good if Erik murdered Delannay, and the thought that she might actually approve scared her. "Too bad you came here in times like these. If you could see the Opéra Populaire as it normally is…"

"Yes indeed," he put in gently. "I should like to see that. And I should like to see you without the burden of sorrow you're dragging along with you day and night."

"You're trying to be charming, are you?"

"You're starting to grow fond of me, are you?" he retorted, never missing a beat.

"Get out of my thoughts. They're private."

"You like me to be in your thoughts."

"I absolutely _don't_!"

"You keep me inside your head even if I'm far outside."

This impertinent… For once, Madame Giry was at a loss for words. "I'm warning you, watch your tongue with me or else –"

"You'll have to box my ears, I know. I might actually appreciate it."

"In this case you're a pretty sick man."

Again he chuckled. "Oh, this opera house must be a very nice place indeed in times of peace. And I don't doubt you'll keep that peace with that cane of yours."

If that Prussian fiend could stop to be disgustingly smug for just one minute… She needed to have a word about this with Erik, about a certain guest of his and said man's behaviour. Not that Erik had invited Aeternus, but he was suffering him to be here and move around the building freely. Why couldn't he restrict him to the stables, if he needed him here at all?

He was not even handsome. He was perfectly plain.

"But I can assure you that you will soon see better days," he continued smoothly, as if they had just had a moment's polite small-talk. "This war will end, though I'm afraid there are rough times ahead. LaCroix has something nasty coming to him, if that comforts you. And as for Delannay… I think he won't outlast him long. Of course, I do not have Créon's gift of seeing the spirit world and reading a person's precise fate as it flickers before me, but I get a certain sense of foreboding, along with a general feeling of how the world will fare. Once winter is over, this will look better for you. Definitely." Regarding him from the side, Madame Giry saw that he was smiling slightly.

"Yes. Once winter is over. And winter has not even quite begun yet."

At first Aeternus did not react to this, and Madame Giry suspected that he knew a lot more than he was saying aloud, and that part of the reason he did not say it was that it was far too unpleasant for her to hear. Then, very slowly, he continued, "I should have an eye on the Phantom, if I were you."

"Why?" she demanded, sharper than she had meant to. What was happening to her Erik? Did Aeternus by any chance really know more about him than she did?

"His fate is dragging him back onto his old path, you see. He's fighting, but there's no fighting it."

Madame Giry almost groaned. Not again! "Oh, please…"

"Yes, I know you don't like to hear it. Sometimes it seems you're fighting it more than he does himself. But to do you the favour, let's speak of different matters. For example, I heard there's to be a masked ball on New Year's Eve…"

Madame Giry shrugged. At the moment, she could not have cared less. "The Communards might well cancel it."

"I think they won't."

"What makes you so certain?" she asked, truly growing fed up with his smugness. And, Lord in Heaven, did Xavier call _that_ a pirouette? It was a disgrace, that was what it was!

"Well, being who I am…" And to think that she had assumed he could get no smugger! "Normally I don't meddle, but this time I might."

"Erik will never allow it," she stated firmly.

Aeternus shrugged. "We will see. I can assure you of one thing, though: I think there are a couple of jolly moments ahead, at least."

As she looked up at him, she saw that he really was smiling now, and it was not even an unpleasant smile.


	42. V Threaten and adore

**V. Threaten and adore**

It was chilly in the shadow of the trees. The Phantom had found them a place where they could sit on a fallen trunk and spread out their belongings in what might be considered the tiniest clearing imaginable, but despite this whole adventure's irresistibly romantic flair, _it was chilly_. Of course, the Phantom had warned them about this. He had reminded them that it might be surprisingly warm still for the end of October, but that it was October all the same, and November's foggy cold was drawing near, but in the warmth of the Opera House Meg had only seen the exciting expedition ahead and not thought of such trivialities as the current time of year. Perhaps she should have stayed at home? But no, not when everybody else was coming along.

Well, only Christine and Raoul and Senta. And the new girl, Valencienne. But should she stay at home when some new girl was going? No, no indeed! There was no way a Maxim performer was setting out on an adventure and Meg Giry was staying behind!

To be fair, it was not Valencienne's fault she had only found employment at the Maxim; there were more than enough singers around to fill every opera chorus twice, as Meg's mother used to say. But still, Meg and Erik had been friends already when Valencienne still had been completely oblivious to his existence.

She was jealous, she admitted to herself, jealous that Valencienne had been permitted to sit on César in front of Erik and lean against him, jealous that there was another woman in his life now. Of course, she could have claimed him earlier on, he had been more than ready to get to know her in ways her mother would very much disapprove of, but she had refused back then, and she would still refuse now. She had enjoyed the occasional snuggling, and kissing too at times, but there were certain lines she would not cross, and it had not been enough for him. Moreover, especially recently he had been a brother to her, more than anything else. There was no reason to be jealous, because she had not wanted to be what Valencienne was to Erik now.

But all the same…

Raoul spread out a couple of blankets on the ground, and Senta was the first to settle down on them, sitting on her haunches and looking up at Raoul expectantly with her tongue hanging out. With her thick, fluffy fur, she probably did not feel the cold at all. Her white-tipped tail hit the blanket beneath her as she wagged, as cheerful as ever.

To Meg's right, the horses were whickering and snorting and stamping their hooves, trying to accommodate themselves where they had been tied to thick branches. César was attempting to nip Christine's grey mare beside him, but the Phantom whistled softly and stared at him hard, and the stallion lowered his head and concentrated on the moss he was standing on instead.

"Well," Raoul said, sitting down beside Meg, "this is as cosy as it's going to get."

"Couldn't we have a fire?" she asked hopefully. A fire, that would be something _really_ romantic!

Raoul shook his head. "Too dangerous. We might be seen, and we don't want any unnecessary trouble. We're with Erik, yes, and Erik is here to see Nordstedt, but it's still best if we avoid all contact with the Prussians if possible."

Sighing, Meg exchanged a glance with Christine, who shrugged. "This is going to get pretty uncomfortable before too long," she stated.

"No nagging, piglet. _You_ wanted to come, I never made you." The Phantom did not even turn, but continued affixing the horses' nosebags.

Meg snorted. Calling her piglet in front of Valencienne! And the worst was that he was completely right in what he said.

"Do we have lunch now?" Raoul asked, trying to fend off Senta's attempts at climbing his lap.

"Absolutely not, kid. It may be midday, but it's still not lunchtime."

"So might I inquire when lunchtime is, in the Lord Phantom's worthy opinion?"

"The Lord Phantom decrees that there will be no lunch for you, kid," the Phantom shot back dryly. "No, seriously: You lot can have lunch whenever you like. I'm going to see General von Nordstedt." Indeed, when passing out the nosebags, he had left out César. "Raoul, be so kind and toss me a carrot."

"You want me to peel it for you?" Raoul grinned as he reached into a bag. "Or do you prefer to eat it nice and earthy and unpeeled?"

"For my horse, you dolt! He's coming with me."

"Yes, I know. Here, catch." Raoul threw the demanded carrot, and the Phantom caught it with his left hand and smoothly transferred it to César's waiting muzzle. "So, we said I stay here with Christine and you go to the camp. What do the other two do? Stay with us as well?"

The Phantom shrugged. "I expect so. I never promised this was going to be overly interesting."

"We're with you," Christine agreed, "and that's what it's about. To accompany you, not for adventures."

"Yes, but –" Meg stopped herself and bit her lower lip. Yes, Christine was right. Erik had asked if they wanted to come with him, but had warned them that they would have to wait while he fulfilled his errand.

But all the same… this place was nothing but gloomy and chilly. Whereas getting a look at the Prussian encampment was a very tempting idea. Of course Meg harboured a dislike for the Prussians, like everybody else in the city probably, but there was nothing wrong with being curious.

Her mother had not liked the idea much, but she had agreed, and so there could really be nothing wrong with it.

Well… she had not expected anyone to accompany Erik into the camp, or had she?

Which was highly unlikely, anyway.

"You can come with me if you like, little sister."

Meg stared at him in unconcealed surprise, at the smile playing beneath the black mask. Had he really just said that? Had he really permitted her to accompany him? That he had called her _little sister_ was probably not to make Valencienne jealous; she did not pay it much attention. She was to go with Erik!

"Same goes for you," the Phantom added with a nod at Valencienne. "Let's leave those two love-doves to themselves in this nice romantic forest, shall we?" He attempted a smile, but one corner of his mouth twitched traitorously, so that it became a grimace. "Kid, you have an eye on her. If you do anything you shouldn't, I'll know straight away."

Raoul answered with his open, jolly grin he wore so often. "So will I, old villain."

"Yes, I suppose you will." He bid him goodbye with a nudge to the shoulder, whereas Christine got a long, earnest look that, to Meg's friend, probably carried a meaning none of the others would understand. First he and Christine, then he and Valencienne… Again Meg had to fight down a growing sensation of jealousy.

But on the other hand, Meg reasoned as she once again climbed the horse that had brought her here, patting the bowed neck a little uneasily – she really was not used to horses, especially not if they moved too quickly while she had to try to sit as gracefully as possible –, on the other hand… it was better that way. Yes, it was. Having to put up with Erik as a friend could be difficult enough sometimes, but having to put up with him as a lover… Christine had told her quite enough, after all, and she and the Phantom had not even been lovers, technically. Clearly enough, he had a… _peculiar_ way with those he loved. Well, he had loved Christine to the point of obsession – and probably still did so – which did not hold true for anyone else, yet all the same… He had regarded Christine as his own, his property, at the same time as throwing himself at her feet. He had controlled and dominated her, and yet pleaded with her like with a queen, or even a goddess. He had adored her, devoted as a dog, but as he had understood that he would not possess her in the end, he had meant to destroy her.

It still was a very sobering thought, after several months.

And Valencienne knew nothing of all this. There she sat on César's back with her arms around the Phantom's waist and her cheek against his shoulder, oblivious to the true nature of the man she had thrown in her lot with.

"Keep up, little sister," the Phantom called back. "Stray around here alone, and they'll be down on you like a flock of Pharenian vultures!"

Hesitantly, Meg dug in her heels just a little, and the horse sped up with a disconcerting little jolt. "What vultures, exactly?"

At first he did not reply, then he shrugged slightly. "Any old flock of vultures, it does not matter. Just keep up!"

Aha. And what would Aeternus have to say to this? The thought came suddenly, unbidden, and left an uncomfortable sensation at the pit of her stomach.

Why couldn't he be just the Erik she had come to know and like?

Because that Erik, a nasty little voice inside her head whispered, does not, in fact, exist. He's just an illusion, the image of the Phantom as you'd like to have him. All the time you knew the real Erik is different.

Maybe she should take Valencienne aside and talk to her. She seemed a nice girl to Meg; how could she just let her walk into a trap blindfolded. Of course, it was unfair to think of Erik in such a way, but then again, when it came to their first quarrel… would he be fair?

But then the sprawling camp before her distracted her, and she finally managed to banish her gloomy thoughts from her mind.


	43. VI Leading Ladies are a Trial

**VI. Leading Ladies are a Trial**

Her chin thrust forward, her fists at her hips, Carlotta Giudicelli glared at the room in general. Once again, she was _furious_.

Before her, the managers were practically cringing, and Monsieur Reyer was once again wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, as always in such situations. However, the man Delannay had sent was not impressed at all.

"Zis is a _disgrrace_!" Carlotta tried again. "I object to being trreated like some _chorrus_ _girrl_!" But she had the nasty suspicion that it showed no effect at all.

"Signora –" André began, raising his hands assuagingly, but the pale, dark-haired man cut him off with a lazy wave. "I gather that it never was you who chose the program," he said. He did not speak loudly, he had never raised his voice until now. But there was something captivating in it, a strange fascination, as if under its gentle velvet a blade lay hidden. "As far as you are concerned, Madame, nothing changes. Nothing at all. Or does it?"

Carlotta considered this. Of course things had changed since the year before! For example, she had noted how respect was decreasing rapidly, and even more so ever since this so-called Phantom had started to appear on stage himself. The man possessed some talent, she had to admit to herself grudgingly, but that was no justification at all for his outrageous audacity of attempting to dethrone her! And now this Michel Delannay had arrived with his horrible mob, and Carlotta felt she was not being respected at all, let alone properly appreciated.

"In fact, Monsieur LaCroix," Firmin dared to interject, "it does. Because, you see –"

"I was talking to Madame Giudicelli, man." Another would have said this in a cross way, yet still the man spoke very gently. He had a deep and oddly warm voice, and yet his eyes were cold, cold and black.

Firmin bit his lower lip visibly and fell silent at once. From the corner of her eye, Carlotta could see how he began to tug at the lapels of his maroon-coloured jacket nervously.

"Madame," LaCroix continued in the same tone of cool politeness, "I take it you performed alongside a certain man a couple of times, a man best known as Phantom."

Carlotta felt inclined to sharply voice her opinion of this man he was referring to – arrogant, rude, brutal, shameless and downright evil summed him up quite well – but then, on second thought, did her best to swallow down her anger. LaCroix was up to something, and she was not stupid enough to walk into a trap open-eyed. "I had ze doubtful pleasurre, yes," she conceded. True, the man could sing, but he was _no way_ as good as the late Ubaldo Piangi had been.

Her partner. The one the Phantom had murdered. Under the control of another, as it was said – and the memory of the one occasion where she had met Créon still was enough to make her shudder – but all the same, it had been him who had killed Piangi.

"Would you rather work with this man, I wonder, or do as Councillor Delannay wishes?" Again LaCroix spoke very gently, but the underlying message was obvious: _You had better be grateful Delannay is here. Are you grateful, or are you not? Because if you should decide you are not…_

Carlotta swallowed. Oh, the humiliation of this! But there was no way out of this city, not anymore. She should have thought of leaving long ago. But then again, where should she have gone in wild times like these? News from her native Italy were far from good as well, unrest had taken the states; the Vatican was under siege and a movement to unite its countries had gripped the nation, from the Lombard realm in the north to the Kingdom of Sicily in the south.

If there was any way to make it to Spain…

Too late. She was trapped within a besieged city now, and what was worse, a city currently controlled by some who probably could not even spell the word _culture_.

"You see," LaCroix continued, "what I'm offering you is, in fact, a deal. You do as the Council asks you to, and in return you may soon be rid of this Phantom forever."

Carlotta met his gaze, those glittering eyes that seemed dark as obsidian, and instinctively felt that if he said _forever_, then he meant it. She swallowed again. What choice did she have?

At last she nodded, but at the same time the nagging feeling was stealing into the back of her head that she would rather put up with this Phantom.

Nonsense, of course, she told herself. It was only because currently she had to face this eerie LaCroix, who seemed more ghostly than the infamous Opera Ghost.

A thought came unbidden, suddenly filled her mind: When nobody was on her own side, would she have to choose sides herself?


End file.
